


Dans Mes Rêves, Je M’enfuis / In My Dreams, I Escape Me

by giddytf2



Category: Inception (2010), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: #coulsonlives, (Eames is a good friend), (although it doesn't seem that way to Clint), (and Arthur too), (and yet not), (just Somnacin), (really!), Altered Mental States, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awesome Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Awesome Phil Coulson, BAMF Clint Barton, BAMF Phil Coulson, Bottom Clint Barton, Canonical Character Death, Clint Barton Feels, Clint Has Issues, Clint Needs a Hug, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, First Time, Fugue States, Hallucinations, Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Clint, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) is a Good Bro, M/M, Memory Loss, Mental Breakdown, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Poor Clint, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Inception, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Slash, Protective Bruce, Protective Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Protective Natasha, Protective Phil Coulson, Protective Steve, Protective Thor, Requited Love, Romance, Slow Build, Sneaky Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Top Phil Coulson, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-19 06:05:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4735280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giddytf2/pseuds/giddytf2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the months after Agent Phil Coulson's death on the Helicarrier at the hands of Loki, Clint resorts to an illegal, experimental military device and drug to hold onto a dead dream and a dead man he still loves but didn't love him back the same way.</p><p>(As of Apr 2016 - A massively overhauled, fresher version can be read <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6610216">here</a>.</p><p>However, if it's Clint angst and suffering ya want with no happy ending, you can actually read chapters 1 to 9 as a complete story. Don't say I didn't warn ya about no happy ending that way!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is mainly a Clint/Coulson love story set in the Avengers universe in which the Inception universe has been assimilated. You don't need to have watched Inception to enjoy the story, since anything Inception-related will be explained in the story. If you're utterly unfamiliar with the two Inception characters, Arthur and Eames, [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyA26irCGk0) will show you a bit of what they're like. 
> 
> The story is split into two parts to denote change of character perspective. The first half is of Clint's perspective, while the second half is ... I'll let you guess from the tags. *grin*
> 
> As a pre-emptive strike on any possible disappointment regarding the ship tags: The Steve/Tony shipping is only in the background and has any hints at all only towards the end. However Steve and Tony appear very early on in the story and do so to the end. While Arthur and Eames are mentioned a few times in the first half of the story, they will only appear in the second half. The Arthur/Eames shipping is also only in the background with some hints here and there. Thor/Jane Foster only appears at all in the story via Thor mentioning her a few times.
> 
> And yep, take heed of the tags. Poor Clint's going to go through quite a bit of mental (and physical) hell. But we know who's going to save the day, right?
> 
> Current tracks while writing:  
> [Inception OST - Old Souls](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRiF9HzfEoc) [overall track]  
> [Sting - A Thousand Years](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn7eWTsj9wU) (pretty much Clint's love song to Coulson just for the lyrics)  
> [Pixar's Up OST - Married Life cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBihtjclJeQ) (that includes a cello and is dang lovely) [for chapter 4]  
> [Pixar's Up OST - Married life cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DiMoehAeOU#) (a more melancholic piano version) [for chapter 4]  
> [WEAVE OST - Lost](https://www.sendspace.com/file/yyb13w) [for chapters 5, 6 and 11]  
> [Ludovico Einaudi - Ritornare](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaTd96qdsaI) [for chapter 7]  
> [The Dark Knight OST - Agent of Chaos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZTsgfjOHnE) [for chapter 8]  
> [The Dark Knight OST - Chance](https://youtu.be/M7QPPKn2YeE?t=51) [for chapter 9 and 10, starting from 0:50 onwards]
> 
> AS OF APRIL 2016 - A massively overhauled, fresher version can be read [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6610216).

**PART I: CLINT**

The opened curtains of their bedroom are swirls of dark gold and purple this time. Clint’s never admitted aloud that he loves purple like he loves that tiny dimple in Phil’s cheek when Phil cracks that rare, wide smile, but he loves purple and Phil heard him say so once a lifetime ago in a hotel room in Kharkiv that no longer exists.

He loves that the bed sheets under him are purple too, a lighter shade that brings out the gold in his naked skin. He loves that Phil treats him like he’s precious metal even though old circus white trash like him doesn’t deserve it. He loves that he can be on his knees like this for Phil, spread them out good and rest his shoulders and chest on purple silk while he opens himself up with two fingers and pulls on his hard cock with his other hand. Show Phil what he’s got, what he’s gladly given to Phil and Phil alone.

“Jesus. What you do to me.”

He loves Phil’s voice like he loves that bottle of honey Ma once, and only once, bought and let him and Barney slather on bread with melted butter for breakfast. Sweet and thick, and goes down so nice and _deep_ into Clint’s hot, hungry belly. He can listen to Phil speak forever, speak anything and everything.

“You are getting _old_ , babe,” he says into the bed sheets, grinning, trying not to moan and failing. “Can’t even remember my name. Need to - _uuhh_ \- get you some a’ that _brain vitamin_.”

He can listen to Phil laugh low and brief like that for decades, listen to Phil get up from the chair in front of their bed and walk up behind him, close the carpeted space between them with languid steps. Listen to Phil’s breathing speed up just that little bit faster when he adds another finger into his clenching hole and thrusts them in and out for Phil to see. Phil likes seeing him exposed like this. Likes him opened up in more ways than one, in every way that nobody else gets to see.

He sighs at the pressure of Phil’s large hands squeezing his ass, one on each rounded cheek. Squeezing hard enough that there will be red marks the shape of long, strong fingers. He wishes they could be there like a tattoo. A permanent claim, a reminder that someone owns him, _loves_ him.

“Clint,” Phil says, and Clint trembles at the weight of possession in each letter of his name. “Clint.”

He feels Phil’s cock nudging at his inner thigh and hand, hard and hot and long and perfect.

“Phil,” he whispers, baring everything inside him with that one name. “Fuck me. Please, now? Please.”

He withdraws his fingers and gets up on his elbows to look over his shoulder at Phil and Phil - Phil’s naked like he is and so damn beautiful in the sunshine streaming in through the windows. Phil is like a classical painting come to life, gilded in warmth, a lean, perfectly proportionate mass of smooth plains of dark and light in motion. Some of the curls dusting Phil’s broad chest glint like fire. Phil’s big blue eyes burn like a star going supernova, radiating Clint with energy that travels through his limbs like shock waves.

He still can’t believe that Phil is here. That Phil is his.

“Fuck me now,” Clint orders. It’s even quieter than a whisper.

He doesn’t deserve it, any of it, doesn’t deserve this _privilege_ but Phil hears him and Phil ’s lifting up his hips and the gorgeous, slick head of Phil’s cock is pressing into him and oh, Phil’s sliding into him in a single, relentless thrust and it doesn’t hurt at all and it’s perfect, _perfect_. He twists his fingers into the sheets as electricity zigzags up his spine, building up with each passing vertebrae. It explodes in his head like fireworks and leaves his open mouth with a sharp, stuttering cry.

“God, oh fuck, that’s it,” he manages to say a century later, “just like that. Just like that _right there_.”

He arches his back just the way Phil likes it. His trembling body swallows Phil in to the hilt, pushes back for more even when coarse curls imprint themselves on the firm curves of his ass. It’s so good, every time, like it’s the first time all over again, Phil easing into him like they’re made for each other, like day and night blending into each other and becoming eternal dusk lit by starlight. Phil grips his hips like he’s something valuable and substantial, pounds into him like he’s the sum of Phil’s universe, each unerring thrust against his prostate making him choke down on senseless words and spill out noises of overwhelming pleasure.

“You are perfect, Clint,” Phil says into his ear, a shelter of warm skin upon his back. “You’re _everything_ to me.”

He arches his back even more, throwing his head back against Phil’s shoulder, gasping. He spreads his knees even more, rutting backwards to meet every steady, deep thrust.

“Don’t you forget that, ever,” Phil says, and Clint shuts his eyes and swallows visibly. It’s like the last missing piece of him clicking back into place, every time Phil fucks him hard like this and yanks at his hair and moves his head for a rough clash of lips and tongues. Phil knows exactly what to do, to say to him, every time. Knows how to smash down his walls and take him apart at the seams and make him feel safe again, _complete_ again.

It’s so good. So damn good he can’t believe it’s real.

His brain goes offline when Phil speeds up, burying that thick, hot cock so deep and fast in him that he feels like screaming down the walls of their bedroom, their house, their world. He hasn’t touched his own cock since Phil entered him and he’s so rigid that he’s aching and dribbling pre-come onto the sheets. He’s stretched to the fullest and it feels like it _should_ hurt but it doesn’t, not at all. It’s exactly what he needs.

Phil kisses him again. Bites his lower lip, groans his name.

He grabs the nape of Phil’s neck, scratches at the short, dark hair there, sucks on Phil’s tongue and lips. Whimpers at a particularly forceful thrust that makes him see bursts of white behind his eyelids. Feels his cock jerking, his balls drawing up, the pressure in them becoming unbearable.

Tastes warm copper on Phil’s lips, on his own.

His eyes snap open. He glances down at Phil’s lips and … and they’re red and wet and _red_ and oh god, that’s _blood_ coating Phil’s lips and teeth. It’s dripping down Phil’s chin and onto his shoulder and Phil looks so _pale_ and where’s the blood coming from, where -

He hears the grisly sound of a blade slicing through human flesh and bone.

He hears a strangled cry of pain, the anguished roar of an imprisoned god. And he hears -

_Your heroes are scattered. Your floating fortress falls from the sky. Where is my disadvantage?_

He sees blue everywhere. It’s drowning everything in ice, in numbness and nothingness and he needs to be warm again, needs the sun of a bright, cloudless morning, the dark gold and purple swirls on heavy curtains, the two mugs of steaming coffee on the bedside table, the pillow that smells like Phil and he needs -

He squeezes his eyes shut again, presses wobbling lips tight together. He flattens his palms against his eyelids. He’s being rolled over onto his back and he feels silk against his back and the flat edge of a hefty blade against his chest and he’s wheezing, he can’t breathe, he can’t move, he’s so cold and no, _no_ , he doesn’t want to hear that voice, not here, of all places, he doesn’t want to listen and _obey_ because doing so had meant -

“Hey, I’m here, Clint. _Sshh_. It’s okay. I’m here.”

Phil gently moves his hands away from his face. Phil is gazing down at him with warm, soft eyes. Phil is carding long, strong fingers through his hair, caressing his scalp. Phil is bowed over him between his spread thighs, shielding him from the glare of the sunshine streaming in through their bedroom windows, and Phil looks so healthy and happy and his lips are quirked up with affection and the blood’s gone, it’s gone.

No. It was never there. Never. Just saliva and the hint of salt from Clint’s skin and nothing else.

Phil is here. Phil is his. Phil’s body is whole and unmarked and fine, just fine.

Everything’s fine. Everything is as it should be.

He raises a hand that definitely isn’t shaking to cup Phil’s bristly cheek. Phil hasn’t shaved yet, hasn’t started preparing for yet another day of toil and trouble at SHIELD headquarters. They still have time together before Phil has to go. They have all the time in the world.

“Don’t stop,” Clint whispers. “Don’t stop, please.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

Phil doesn’t complain about his arms and legs wrapping like chains around Phil’s bunching shoulders and trim waist. Phil wraps sinewy arms just as snugly around him and pushes back into him in several short, easy thrusts. He shudders and gasps at the unwavering strokes that follow, drags Phil’s head to his and kisses dry, dark pink lips that tell him how much he’s cherished, how much he matters.

“Oh god, oh fuck, oh fuck _oh fuck_ ,” he moans into the sweltering skin between Phil’s neck and shoulder. “Oh fuck, I’m gonna -”

“Oh yeah, come now,” Phil says hoarsely, fucking him even harder than he did before. “Come for me.”

He cries out Phil’s name as his cock spurts between their flat bellies, writhing in Phil’s arms. Some of his come hits his chest, his neck. He’s drowning in so much heat, so much _bliss_ and it’s so good, so fucking good that he must have done something right somehow in his whole fucked up life to have this, to see Phil’s face go slack with the same bliss as Phil comes deep inside him, to see Phil panting and grinning down at him like that and kiss him again, over and over.

He hopes Phil will stay with him, in him forever. He hopes this will never end.

“Don’t go,” he murmurs into the fragile skin of Phil’s long neck, into the stable pulse there an eon later. “Stay here today. You can take a day off.”

Phil rolls them over, not once letting go of him, not slipping an inch out of him. Phil’s hand is holding his head in place against Phil’s neck. Phil’s other hand rests on the curve of his lower back, drawing inscrutable symbols into his skin with calloused fingertips.

“Yes. You’re right. I’ve got _months_ of leave I’ve yet to take.”

Clint closes his eyes. Breathes in Phil’s comforting, earthy scent and basks in the sensation of Phil’s softening cock in him, in the searing sunshine streaming in through their bedroom windows and the sleekness of the purple bedsheets under them and the aroma of fresh coffee still tongue-burning hot on their bedside table.

“Good. Stay.”

“I’m here.”

“Don’t go.”

“I’m here, sweetheart. I’ll be here when you wake up. Like I always am.”

“Okay,” Clint whispers, and he kisses Phil’s neck and falls asleep to the constant beat of Phil’s unscathed heart.


	2. Chapter 2

When Clint opens his eyes, he finds himself staring at the cherry brown-finished and leather-accented, wooden doors of a bathroom vanity. He knows it’s a bathroom vanity because he’s on the bathroom floor and he can feel the chill of polished tiles seeping into him through the skin of his right arm and flank. He knows he’s sprawled on his side and that he’s shirtless but has sweatpants on. He knows there’s something wet and warm that’s trickled down the right side of his face, that’s drying in the cool, goosebumps-inducing air.

What he _doesn'_ _t_ know is how he ended up here. This doesn’t look like his and Phil’s bathroom. The vanity’s too gaudy for either of them, for one. It looks like something a rich asshole with too much money to splurge on pointless shit would buy, just for the fun of it. It looks like something that costs more than Pop’s last car, before Pop got drunk off his ass again and crashed it into that guard rail with Ma in the passenger seat, crushed them both in cheap metal and made it their coffin.

He blinks. Stares at the brass, filigree door handles of the vanity. Blinks again.

He thinks about calling out for Phil, but maybe Phil isn’t around, maybe Phil will just laugh at him for being so clumsy this one time and then he’ll laugh too and then … and then. He doesn’t remember how he got here. He just … doesn’t. Wasn’t he in bed? With Phil? Did he come to the bathroom and then _trip_ on the rug or something?

Heh, yeah. Phil’s going to laugh for sure.

He blinks again, owlishly. Shifts his head on the floor and sees red from the corner of his eyes. Shifts his head some more and sees the red for what it is, smeared across brown and silver marble. Ah. He must be bleeding from a wound on his head somewhere. Probably his forehead. The wound doesn’t hurt. It’s a nice change from painful ones.

Phil is going to be so pissed that he’s injured himself. He knows how much Phil hates it when he’s been injured.

Eventually, he gets bored of staring at the dumb, gaudy vanity. He’s got all the time in the world, but that doesn’t mean he wants to spend it lazing on luxury bathroom tiles when he can be with Phil instead, and where the hell _is_ the guy?

He shouts Phil’s name, or at least, he tries to. It doesn’t even puff out of his mouth as an audible word, parched as he suddenly realizes his throat is. Holy shit, he needs water. He needs a gallon of it, stat. He grunts as he pushes himself upright, his arms quivering, his head spinning round and round and making him seriously reconsider his decision to move.

Water. He needs water like a flower needs the sun, like a bow needs a string and arrow. He can go back to lying down on the floor after he gets some water. Yeah, that’s a good idea. And then yell for Phil again, the jerk, leaving him all by his sad lonesome like this.

He sees more smears of red on the edge of the vanity’s marble top as he clutches at it and staggers up to his bare feet. The blood is lurid on its cream color, a violent dash of wetness that stains its ostentatious perfection. The fact that it’s his blood makes it even uglier.

Then he sees the framed, oblong mirror above the vanity, and oh boy, there’s something way uglier looking back at him now.

“Fuck,” he mumbles.

He looks like total crap. Blood is running down the right side of his pallid face in rivulets from a cut high up his forehead, smudged across his cheek when he’d turned his head on the floor. The shadowed bags under his bloodshot eyes look like _they_ have bags, and he hasn’t shaved in a few days and a gallon of water’s not going to cut it, from the looks of his split lips. Holy _shit_ , did Phil actually fuck him while he looked like _this_?

He laughs soundlessly to himself as he drags the lever handle of the solid brass faucet arching over a white ceramic sink to turn it on. Phil, always teasing him in that understated way about being such a _softie_ under his tough guy muscles and image, always pointing out all the things he loves about him and meaning every word, even after all these years and willing to have sex with him when he _looks like this_. And Phil thinks _he_ _’s_ got it bad -

In the mirror, his face goes blank. He stares down at his right arm, at the bruises of varying ages on his forearm and bicep. At the tiny, dark dots marring the crook of his elbow. What the _fuck_?

His arm tremors as he lifts it higher for inspection under the warm white glow of two austere wall lamps. The marks, they look like … they look just like needle marks. When did he get those? When did he get any injections? Did someone do this to him, or did he do this to himself? _What_ did he inject himself with, if he actually did this to himself?

He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember doing that at all, he -

_Now this is Somnacin. We don’t use the one that bloody council controls, we’ve got a chemist who makes his own stuff._

Clint pulls his right arm tight to his hunched torso, gripping it there with his left hand. He stares down at the clear water gushing out of the faucet. At the single drop of blood that plummets from his face and fades into swirling water. He shivers. He … he knows who said that to him. Said that months ago, in a Georgian townhouse in a cold, damp country thousands of miles away.

_We don't call it a townhouse here. It’s a terraced house. And yes, I picked it because Arthur has no taste whatsoever in anything except suits._

And that … that was said to him years ago, when he was given three weeks of leave after an exhausting mission in Orhei and he flew out of New York straightaway after the debriefing to London to meet … Eames. Yeah. That’s right. Eames. Eames, with his garish shirts, crooked smile and boxer physique and that English accent.

Eames and his partner, Arthur, in their terraced house in the heart of London, where he’d found some peace again after … after what happened here in New York.

Where he’d found Phil again.

 _It_ _’s a thousand US dollars per dose, give or take. It’s the kind of drug you_ don’t _drop on the floor if you can help it._

_Well, we don't have to worry about that, do we, love? Clint’s got us to take care of him now._

He’d found Phil again there, in one of the guest bedrooms, in a small bottle of honey-gold liquid and a silver, double-latched suitcase full of sophisticated machinery Tony would have drooled and cooed over. He hadn’t felt the IV needle go in his arm at all. Eames had told the truth about making sure it wouldn’t hurt a bit. That he wouldn’t hurt anymore, if only for a while.

 _You know to just call me, don_ _’t you? Yes, good. I know, it couldn’t last forever, darling, but it’s here if you need it again._ We _are here._

Eames hadn’t given a damn who could see them then on the doorstep of the terraced house, embracing him almost to the point of suffocation with burly arms and he’d clung on as tightly, hiding his face in the collar and folds of Eames’ shirt. Hiding his shame, hiding all the lies already growing inside and launching themselves from his numb lips with words like, _yeah, I'_ _ll call_ and _I promise_ and _I_ _’ll come back if I have to_ and the worst ones of all: _I_ _’ll be okay, really_.

Clint rubs sore eyes with the pads of his fingers. He listens to the water continuing to surge out of the faucet. Sways on his feet and swallows hard and leans over the sink with one hand on its cold rim. He sucks in a harsh breath as his memories flood back all at once, all of them, pummeling down whatever feeble walls his mind has left that’s kept reality at bay.

Shit, he’d infused himself with another dose again, dreamed and then … blacked out. Again. Eames had said that the Somnacin can screw with your head if it’s … overused. (And it’s not abuse, it’s not because he _needs_ it.) Said that one corrupted dose can be enough to destroy a person’s mind from the inside out, but he’d made sure the batch he purchased from that chemist in Mombasa is clean, had run a chemical comparison with the one dose he’d filched from Eames before he left London. Said that there’s always the possibility of addiction, of dreamers using it every day until their brains and bodies rot away into a permanent slumber.

He sucks in another harsh breath.

He remembers now. Oh god, he remembers where he really is now, who he is. Who he _isn_ _’t_.

And he isn’t okay. Not by a long shot.

Clint holds out his hands over the sink. They’re shaking so much and he can’t keep them still. If he goes out like this with the other Avengers, be it on a mission or for one of those goddamn _team-bonding dinners_ , they’ll know something’s wrong. Natasha will, knowing him so well and as long as she does. And if they know something’s wrong, if they think he can’t shoot with a bow and arrow anymore, think he’s screwed up in the head - which he is, _he is_ \- he ’ll be removed from the team, and he won’t be an Avenger anymore. Maybe not even a SHIELD agent anymore, what with the mandatory appointments with the SHIELD shrink that everyone knows about and the hundreds of fellow SHIELD agents he hurt and _killed_ because … because of -

He feels an ephemeral gust of air behind him, like an exhalation from the yawning jaws of an ancient, withering beast.

He hears the light tread of ageless leather boots upon brown and silver marble.

He stares into the mirror, at the lean, ghoulishly pale figure clad in green and gold armor approaching him from behind, coming up so close to him that he can feel the _ice_ forming upon the skin of his back. He can feel long, dark hair brushing his shoulders like the skittering fingers of the dead, feel glacial lips graze the rim of his right ear and speak into it.

_You had heart. But now it's mine, and never his._

He’s shaking from head to toe. He’s hyperventilating. He thinks he’s going to black out yet again and he stares and stares at the fucking evil Norse bastard god behind him in the mirror, smirking at him like he can never run, never escape no matter where he goes and no, fuck no, Loki’s not here, Loki lost the war and Natasha woke him up and freed him, Loki’s a prisoner in Asgard now and he saw Thor take him away, _he saw it_ , Loki’s not here, not here not here _not here not here, NOT HERE_ -

He watches from far away as his right hand smashes into the mirror as a white-knuckled fist. The mirror fractures outward into a myriad of silver spiderwebs, and within every spiderweb he sees a warped reflection of himself staring back at him. Another drop of blood plummets from his face into the swirling water in the sink. More blood oozes into the silver spiderwebs surrounding his right fist. His breathing slows to an uneven panting, then even slower to long, shallow breaths that snag once or twice in his still parched throat. He feels no pain. He feels nothing.

He sees only himself in the shards and the fissures. He’s alone. He always was. Always is. And although there’s still something terribly ugly staring back at him, it looks more _true_ now, doesn’t it, _cracked_ like it is?

Well, that’s more like it.

Clint doesn’t look at his right arm as he washes away his blood from the vanity’s marble top and the floor tiles. He doesn’t look at the bruises, the tiny, dark dots as he methodically plucks out fragments of mirror from the fingers and knuckles of his right hand. (Just minor cuts, _thank fuck_.) He doesn’t look at the wrecked mirror as he washes his face, slurps mouthfuls of water from the tap and then cleans his wounds, as he slaps a butterfly tape on the forehead gash and binds his hand with bandages from the well-stocked first aid kit inside the vanity.

He can’t conceal the forehead wound, but he can wear a glove to deal with the hand. He’s an archer. It’s normal for him to have gloves on. Nobody will question it.

He stumbles out of the bathroom and is greeted by a million-dollar view of New York City at night through the ceiling-to-floor windows of a minimalist yet lavish bedroom. His bedroom. _His_ goddamn bedroom in a goddamn _full-floor_ _apartment_ that he never asked for in goddamn Stark - no, Avengers Tower. That’s what they’re calling it now.

Jesus, he’d give a lot to know what Barney would think of that, what Barney would think of him rising up so high from their circus days, higher than the Big Top itself could ever dream of reaching.

He’d give everything to know what Phil would think of him now.

He shuffles across carpeted floor to the windows, passing a disheveled, king-size bed. He wilts against tinted, bulletproof glass, leaning his forehead and pressing his jittery hands flat on it. He stares down with slit eyes at the luminescent mazes of shorter skyscrapers and buildings, at the streets teeming with impatient vehicles and and even more impatient people, at the stacks of scaffolding and towering construction cranes and the empty, scoured spaces where once there were more buildings. Buildings that someone worked in for years, maybe even decades of their lives. Buildings they ate in, fucked in, slept in. Buildings that someone called home.

This apartment should be feeling like his home by now. It doesn’t. He’d moved in only because Tony’s a stubborn asshole who can’t take no for an answer, being the last member of the team to do so after Natasha. It hadn’t felt right, leaving the Helicarrier, leaving his assigned room that he’d ate in, fucked in, slept in for years.

Hadn’t felt right leaving the place where Phil had dedicated so much of himself, his life. Where he and Phil had sloughed through paper work in Phil’s office after long missions, had eaten meals together at the mess hall, had wrestled on the mats when they crossed paths at the gym. Where Phil had taken that prototype gun from the R&D department and gone down to the cell in the Helicarrier’s underbelly and -

Clint shuts his eyes. Presses his forehead harder to the glass, like he can break it just like that, break and fall and keep on falling.

“My name is Clint Barton, codenamed Hawkeye,” he says to himself, like he has many times before, like he knows he has to if he wants the line between dream and reality to remain. “I am in my apartment in the Avengers Tower in New York City. It has been five months and eleven days since the Battle of New York, four months and five days since I moved here from the Helicarrier. I - I am alive and free from the control of that Asgardian piece of shit slimebag, and Phil is … Phil is …”

He swallows past a massive lump that’s lodged itself in his throat.

“Agent Phil Coulson is dead,” he whispers, his face contorting into a wretched grimace. “He was my handler. My friend. He and I were never in a sexual or romantic relationship, and never will be.”

It never gets easier to state that aloud. He never feels any less ashamed of himself for what he’s doing behind the team’s back with his secret stash of Somnacin and the Portable Automated Somnacin IntraVenous device he’d procured from that underground auction in Turkmenistan. He doesn’t feel any less _pathetic_ at having to remind himself that he’d never breathed a word to Phil - to _Coulson_ about having _feelings_ for him, much less told Coulson he _loves_ him. He may be stupid at lots of things, but he was never stupid enough to ruin whatever friendship he had with Coulson.

Coulson had a cellist _girlfriend_ in Portland, for fuck’s sake, and Clint was never, ever stupid enough to open his admittedly big mouth and confess to a straight guy - his _SHIELD handler_ \- that he’s been madly in love with Coulson since Coulson shot him in the leg and then offered him a new life, a new beginning.

And, well. Look where that’s gotten him.

He opens his eyes again. Stares blindly at the world beyond the glass, at everything that should have frozen in time when Coulson died, like he has. He thinks he has a pretty good idea now of what Steve might have felt sleeping in seventy years of ice. He thinks that maybe Steve will be the only one who’ll understand, who _knows_ what it’s like to wake up one day and realize that your whole world is just _gone_ , be it from the inevitability of time or from a magical scepter stabbing through human flesh and bone.

He wonders if Steve has a totem like he’s supposed to have himself, something to hold on to when dreams and reality blur together and he doesn’t know if he’s awake or still sleeping away in the ice.

 _You must never dream without your totem_ , Eames had told him, before Eames had inserted the IV needle into his arm that gloomy evening in London. _It_ _’s the one thing you can count on to test whether you’re in a dream or not, and if you don’t have it, you’ll lose yourself._

 _We knew someone who became lost_ , Arthur had said to him, just before pressing down on the round activation button in the center of the PASIV. _She thought she was dreaming even though she was awake. She thought she was dead and she wanted to live again. She threw herself off a building in front of her husband, and never woke up_.

 _But you_ _’re going to_ , Eames had said to him before they shut their eyes, _you_ _’re going to wake up and we’ll be right here_.

He’d clasped his totem to his chest as he and Eames laid down side by side on the bed, a silver target arrowhead he’d removed from the very first arrow Coulson had shot at the range at SHIELD headquarters. He’d made it his totem long before he met Eames in Croatia and later Arthur in Beijing. He knows it like the lines and callouses of his hands, knows its weight on his palm, its scratches, its long groove along its length that’d been etched onto it by the arrow he’d shot after Coulson’s.

He’d left it in the lower drawer of the bedside table in the guest room before leaving the terraced house and London, tracing that long groove for one last time with a fingertip.

He’s starting to forget what it feels like now.

He hopes Eames and Arthur haven’t discovered it yet. He hopes they haven’t figured out that he’s the mysterious purchaser of the PASIV from that auction, that he’s already broken his promise to them to never dream alone and become lost too. He hopes they’ll forgive him one day, when he falls and falls and then doesn’t wake up again.

He takes a step back from the window, then another, and another. Then he trudges to the bed. Picks up a rumpled, long-sleeved black t-shirt from on top of a heap of blankets and dons it. He’s stopped wearing short-sleeved shirts of any kind these days. He also has a new, long-sleeved jacket for his Hawkeye outfit now, and no one’s questioned his decision to get one produced and worn after the Battle of New York.

 _Agent Coulson designed it_ , the techs in the R&D department had whispered behind his back, when he was still staying in the Helicarrier and assisting with the repairs to the rampant damage (that he caused, he did). _He designed almost all the Avengers_ _’ suits. He faced that alien invader alone and died a hero. Wasn’t he something?_

Yeah, Coulson was. He really was.

Clint shivers as he sits on the floor next to the open PASIV by the bed. He’s always cold these days, like winter’s set into his marrow. He carefully counts the vials of Somnacin in the PASIV’s vial store to the left of the silver suitcase - one, two. At least fifteen more in the featureless, rectangular safe tucked into a dark corner of the enormous wardrobe parallel to the bed. It won’t last him for long, if he dreams every night. He’ll have to buy more soon, and from a different chemist, just to be certain he’s covering his tracks. Make sure that batch is safe too, that it won’t turn his brain to scrambled egg, won’t turn him into a vegetable.

It’s only a matter of time, though, before that happens. Time that Coulson doesn’t have anymore, that he stole from Coulson when he wasn’t strong enough to fight the control of that damn scepter.

It’s only fair, he thinks, to do what he can to bring Phil Coulson back into being, even if only in dreams. He doesn’t need a totem for that. He doesn’t need Eames and Arthur for that, not anymore. He doesn’t need the other Avengers when they’ve already moved on from Coulson’s death, even Natasha who’d known Coulson almost as long as he had.

Coulson is _dead_ , he knows that, he _knows_. But _Phil_ -

Clint closes the fingers of his left hand around a vial of Somnacin. Closes his eyes, and sees morning sunshine streaming in through expansive bedroom windows. Feels the silkiness of purple bedsheets, smells the aroma of fresh coffee still tongue-burning hot on a bedside table. Feels dark pink lips brushing at his temple, feels long, tender fingers at the nape of his neck.

Phil is waiting for him to wake up, and it just won’t do to disappoint Phil again.


	3. Chapter 3

For tonight’s _team-bonding dinner_ several levels down on the common floor for the team, Clint’s chosen to dress in a maroon, long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans, with a thin, black glove that envelops his bandaged right hand. It’s a casual outfit that won’t ring any alarm bells. It says ‘relaxed’ in capital letters. It says ‘I’ve got nothing to hide, I’m just here for the delicious Bruce-cooked food, to watch Tony and Steve snip at each other _again_ and tease Natasha so she won’t see what I don’t want her to see’ in huge, neon letters the size of the Avengers Tower and then some.

He’s dressed like this for previous dinners, the glove aside. Nobody’s yet to say anything negative about the outfit, and he figures, if it works, it works. It’s routine. It’s predictable. It makes people see ‘normal and adjusted’ instead of ‘fucked up in the head and addicted to an illegal drug that may be already scrambling a fragile human brain to mush.’

His hands are steady tonight. The cut on his forehead is healing nicely. He’s made an effort to catch up on lost sleep without doping himself into a stupor with his depleting supply of Somnacin. (He’s already found and confirmed the production of a new batch of it with another chemist, so he’s all good there.) It shows in the slight waning of the shadows and bags beneath his eyes, in some color returning to his skin. He can always tell the others he’s still having a difficult time sleeping due to the shit they went through together mere months ago. That much, they’ll get. That much, they’ll overlook and say no more. They have nightmares too, and he knows it.

He knows Tony dreams about flying through that wormhole with the nuclear missile tethered to his back like a cross laden by eight millions lives, flying into that other universe and asphyxiating to death while the entire team listened. He knows Bruce dreams about going green, giant and angry and killing everyone he loves, killing people other people love and not feeling an ounce of remorse for it. He knows Thor dreams about losing Mjolnir again, losing again to his fucker of a brother, always one step behind. He knows Natasha dreams about dying that day in Chelyabinsk with an arrow through her heart, getting her death wish instead of her second chance, her second life with SHIELD. And he knows Steve still dreams about the ice, about a world that only exists now in books and pictures and movies stored away in museums. About dead people who are still alive only in his head.

He wonders if any of them dream about Coulson.

There’s something almost funny about him having the nicest dreams of them all lately, if he could still laugh aloud and not feel something in his chest ache like crazy when he tries. It feels like a sin when he does. It feels like he’s robbing someone else of that laughter, and he’s already robbed enough of everything from others, hasn’t he?

Nevertheless, the mask he’s worn for months now (a lifetime, a lifetime) requires at least a passing smile. People get suspicious when you don’t smile at anything. They start thinking there’s something wrong, start digging for every little clue that points to wrong, wrong, _wrong_ so they can fix you and make you right, right, _right_ again.

“C’mon, Barton,” he says to his reflection in the mirror above the bathroom sink. “Show them that circus star smile.”

In the fractured glass, Clint sees his facial features distort to his will: His eyes narrow and crinkle at the corners. His cheeks bunch up as his lips part and stretch to display a row of straight, pearly teeth. The furrow between his eyebrows disappears. It’s a convincing smile. A smile that still manages to make other people smile back. A smile fooling even his SHIELD therapist nowadays, and that’s no easy feat.

He smiles at the mirror, at himself, but he feels nothing. That doesn’t concern him. Not a blip. This is an undercover job, the toughest undercover job of his life, and every little credible detail counts. Emotions have fuck all to do with doing an efficient job. Emotions can harm you. Get you killed. Get other people killed, people who can be used against you. People who mean something, _everything_ to you.

That doesn’t concern him either. Coulson’s already dead, after all.

The smile slips away from his face. A thousand blank visages stare back at him from between silver spiderwebs. He doesn’t recognize any of them.

He doesn’t recognize the blank face that stares back at him from the Tower elevator’s mirrored walls either, as he travels down to the common floor. It doesn’t concern him. What’s important is that other people do. As long as _they_ see him as he intends, as long as they _believe_ what they see, his cover is secure. And in mere seconds, he’ll be in the presence of five other people who are _damn good_ at seeing through a facade while maintaining their own.

Good thing he’s the best at it.

At the ding of the elevator arriving at its destination, he wills his facial features into a smile again. The elevator doors open smoothly and noiselessly onto a carpeted hallway leading to a two-floor, open plan, extravagant apartment, and from here, he can already hear Thor speaking and the commotion of a kitchen in thorough use of cooking what smells like Chinese cuisine. Bok choy and kai-lan vegetables in oyster sauce and garlic, probably, oven-roasted Chinese sausage and maybe those thick wheat noodles topped with stir-fried minced pork in fermented, salty soybean paste again, since it was a hit the last time Bruce cooked Chinese.

Clint steps into the hallway. Loosens up his limbs and body language as he ambles into view of the other just as casually dressed Avengers and down the staircase to the main area, a languorous and composed melody on two feet. He sucks in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. His smile widens.

Show time.

“Clint! There you are!” Tony, dressed in a graphic-embellished, black t-shirt and jeans, says from where he’s lazing on one of the grandiose couches in the lounge. “And here we thought we had to send up DUM-E to fetch you. Again.”

Thor is sitting on a couch perpendicular to Tony’s, garbed in a white button down shirt that’s open at the collar and dark jeans, his blond hair in a ponytail. Thor must have been speaking to Tony before Clint came in. Whatever the topic was, Thor seems to have dropped it. Thor nods at him in greeting while gazing at him with blue, sagacious eyes that make him want to pivot around and dash back to the elevator and up. It doesn’t help that it unnerves him to see Thor in what Thor would call ‘Midgardian commoner clothing’ or something.

It looks too much like an alien pretending to be one of them, trying to assimilate into their environment and lurk among them. Observe them. Study their systems, their habits, their strengths. Seek out their weaknesses. Hammer them down when they least expect it.

It’s already happened once, and Thor … Thor still _cares_ about his fucker of a brother. Even after everything he’s done. (The people he’s murdered. _Stabbed_.)

Smiling on, Clint looks Thor in the eye and nods back, because that’s what a normal, adjusted guy without a mother lode of resentment towards that fucker of a brother would do.

“You oughta let DUM-E out more often anyway,” he says to Tony, heading for the kitchen where Bruce, Steve and Natasha are. “Can’t be healthy keeping him locked inside a room all the time.”

He swears he hears Tony mutter under his breath something along the lines of, “Should take your own advice there, Legolas.” What he does hear distinctly is, “Are you kidding me? I let DUM-E out, he’ll spray _everything_ with foam.”

“Might be an improvement to the whole place,” he says, and he knows Tony’s flipping him the bird because Steve - in a snug, white t-shirt and khakis, hands full with stacks of plates, bowls and eating utensils - is shooting a disapproving look in the direction of the lounge. Steve’s a funny guy in that he can’t stand cussing and rude gestures but doesn’t think twice about bashing someone’s head in if they’re an enemy and then eating ten pounds of food afterward without a blink. Talk about bizarre standards of things to be offended about.

Something in the left side of Clint’s chest constricts when he sees Natasha at the kitchen counter sprinkling diced spring onion over a gigantic (and it truly is gigantic, to feed guys like Steve and Thor), steaming bowl of noodles straight out of the pot. She’s in a dark green, sleeveless dress that flows to her ankles. Her fiery hair, longer and wavier now, is tied up in a loose bun behind her head. A few strands border the left side of her deceptively angelic, youthful face that’s bare of makeup. It’s his favorite look of her, when she isn’t on a mission and she’s nonchalant and untroubled, her movements leisurely, the faintest of smiles curving up her otherwise stiff lips.

Before the Battle of New York, before the Avengers became more than just an idea on paper, he and Coulson were the only people in the world who she had entitled to see her that way.

“Hey, Nat.”

She glances at him with big green eyes and they’re warm in a way only he can see, only he (and Coulson) is allowed to see.

“Ptichka,” she greets back quietly. _Birdie_.

The rare term of endearment softens his smile into something more genuine, something that makes that thing in the left side of his chest twinge in a different way. In another universe where Coulson never existed, he might have fallen head over heels in love with Natasha like he did with Coulson. Fallen hard and fast, like a leap off a skyscraper with no safety lines, uncaring of how much he’s going to hurt when he lands and oh, it did hurt when he told her a decade ago in the middle of winter in Istanbul, bleeding from a gunshot wound to his side, that he loved her and she’d kindly, delicately said four words back while cupping his cheek.

 _You love someone else_.

It’d been the truth. It still is, and he is grateful that she hasn’t thought differently of him after that, that she’d always loved him like family and still does. That she’d seen right through him and known his heart better than he did himself, then.

But he’s never told her who that someone else is. Was.

She still doesn’t know, he’s certain of that much.

“Ah, Clint, you’re here,” Bruce in a dark blue button down shirt and chinos says, finally noticing him at the counter while scooping out mounds of delectable stir-fried ground pork from a wok with a spatula into a serving bowl. “Can you please help take the other dishes to the table?”

“Sure, no problem,” he replies, his smile still more genuine, his hands even steadier as they sweep up the plates of stir-fried vegetables and oven-roasted meat to the burnished brown, round dining table nearby. He makes a performance of it, gracefully swooping down on the table and whirling around Steve who’s setting up the table, who smiles at his antics. Natasha’s lips quirk up a little more as she carries over the gigantic bowl of noodles (which everyone wisely does _not_ offer to help with). Thor and Tony also appear amused as they saunter up to the table and take their seats.

His cover’s rock solid tonight. So far, so good.

The instant Bruce finishes serving them all lapsang souchong tea from a teapot and sits down with them, Steve and Thor attack the food like it’s an apocalyptic war against their appetites. Bruce has to go cook up a second batch of noodles in a matter of minutes. Everyone else are still on their first serving, eating at a more sedate pace. Clint’s ladled just enough noodles, vegetables and ground pork for himself that the others won’t question him not going for a second helping, won’t notice how mechanically he consumes his food. He hasn’t been able to taste anything good for months. All he tastes on his tongue is ash, and sourness when he throws up after a meal. Neither taste encourages him to eat more.

“So, Legolas,” Tony says casually, very casually, while glancing down at his nearly empty bowl and spooning up the last mouthful of noodles. “What’s up with the forehead?”

Clint remains relaxed. He doesn’t cringe. Gives Tony nothing more than an aloof glance. It’s just like Tony to strike the first blow while they’re all at their most mellow, while _he_ is at his outwardly least defensive. Too bad for Tony, he’s been anticipating the question long before he got into the elevator and came down here.

Still, Tony is never one to be underestimated. People get distracted by his running mouth, his arrogant attitude, his flashy clothes and cars and _towers_ . They don ’t see how his eyes and ears take in everything around him, _really_ take in everything. They don ’t see his real plans, his schematics, concealed and percolating constantly in that genius brain. Don’t see how he puts even the most infinitesimal pieces together into a comprehensive whole with potential far beyond its individual parts, a _vision_ , unless he wants them to see. And when he wants to get something out of you, you won’t see the hook coming until it’s already in your flesh, turning you into a crank, a cog, a piston in the engines of Tony’s future and making you believe you want it too.

Tony is a dangerous man, and not just because of his Iron Man suit.

“I was born with it,” Clint says, already back to chewing on another mouthful of ash, gazing down at his own still-full bowl.

He feels Tony glower at him from across the table, knows Tony’s eyes are narrowed and Tony’s lips are curled in amusement.

“Hardy har _har_ ,” Tony says, undeterred. “What’s up with the _injury_ on your forehead?”

Clint doesn’t have to look at Natasha on his right to know that, despite her not even glancing his way, her attention is utterly honed on him. He forces himself to spoon another mouthful of food into his mouth. If he stops eating now, they’ll all know Tony’s question is getting to him. They’ll know something’s wrong.

“Tripped in the bathroom and banged my head,” he says casually, very casually.

The irony is that it’s true. The best lies are always almost true and just missing select pieces of information.

He swallows down more ash. He feels Tony staring at him. He senses Natasha turn her head towards him, feels her gaze settle upon his face, as overt a sign of surprise from her as it gets. Bruce, to his left, glances at him for a moment, at his forehead where the healing cut is and then returns to eating. Bruce will be asking him about it later in a more subdued setting, he knows, if he gives Bruce that chance. He won’t.

“Tripped, huh?” Tony asks.

“Yeah.”

“What, on a puddle of water?”

“No.”

“Soap?”

“Nah.”

“On a _rug_?”

He shrugs, chews on another mouthful of noodles and minced pork. Swallows it down. Waits for Tony to get impatient that he isn’t bothered to make eye contact, for Tony to assume he’s telling the truth and go back to eating. He ignores Natasha. Hears Thor on her right politely ask her to pass the plate of diminishing bok choy, and feels her gaze glide away, like a laser sight of red flickering away at the last second.

Tony munches on a kai-lan leaf, and Clint knows Tony’s letting go of the issue. For now.

“Gotta keep your hawk eye out for those pesky bathroom rugs, Katniss.”

“Okay, mommy,” Clint says, straight-faced.

If there’s one weakness Tony has, it’s that his quicksilver mind gets so easily distracted by any opening for bantering.

“What? I - why am _I_ the mommy?” Tony slaps down his bowl and chopsticks, appearing affronted, his brown eyes twinkling. “Do I look like the mommy with my _mustache_ and _goatee_?” Before Thor, who’s on Tony’s left and has raised a hand, can answer the question, Tony gives Steve on his right on a pointed look and says, “If we’re gonna follow stereotypical tropes here, I should be the _daddy_ , not the mommy. I mean, if there’s somebody who should be the mommy, it’s Steve. He’s got the _boobs_ for it!”

Of course, Steve just has to be halfway swallowing down some tea when Tony says that. It comes back up in a blustering cough and a rather undignified snort that causes Tony’s lips to tremor with mirth and Bruce to press a few fingers to his own tremoring lips.

“ _Excuse me_?” Steve gasps, after he’s coughed some more and isn’t blushing as dark as beet red anymore.

Clint thinks that Steve is probably the only guy in the world who can say that earnestly _and_ not come across as a sarcastic asshole.

“Don’t look at me like that, it’s _true_! Have you not read what people on the _internet_ say about your _magnificent_ _boobs_? Have you already forgotten how to use your StarkPad, Cap?!”

“Steve? Boobs?” Thor looks confused, his brows furrowed in speculation. “Is boobs not another word for breasts? I was unaware that Midgardian men can possess breasts like that of Midgardian women.”

Steve turns beet red again. He abruptly returns to consuming his third helping of food, tuning out Tony’s snickering and Bruce actually endeavoring to explain to Thor that while, no, Midgardian men do not usually have breasts shaped like that of women’s, Midgardian men _do_ have breasts since the Midgardian fetal blueprint always begins as female and then there’s plastic surgery and also gynecomastia that’s caused by the imbalance of testosterone and estrogen, but Thor probably doesn’t want to hear about all that.

“I am Asgardian but … does that mean _I_ have boobs?” Thor says in absolute seriousness, glancing down at his very impressive, muscular chest. “I must speak with my Lady Jane about this later!”

Clint lets one end of his lips quirk up while Tony laughs louder and Bruce smiles and shakes his head fondly. Yeah, there’s nothing like boobs to steer a conversation away from treacherous territory. Or sex. Or shitting habits. Midgardians, man, such a whacked out species. It’s no wonder Thor gets so flummoxed about humans sometimes.

“This is another excellent dinner, Bruce,” Natasha says a few minutes later, when they’ve all calmed down again.

“Thank you, Natasha.”

“Yeah, it’s good,” Clint murmurs, and instantly he knows it’s a mistake.

Bruce gazes at him with amiable, dark brown eyes that are also sharp. Very sharp.

“You up for another serving?” Bruce asks offhandedly, already reaching for the ladle in the serving bowl of noodles that’s rapidly emptying again thanks to Steve (and where does it all _go_?).

Clint glances down at his now half-full bowl. Fuck, if he can’t even finish this, Bruce is sure to come after him later to ask him about his _diet_ or something too. Like he needs the others to know he’s also been losing weight, _no_.

He plasters on a smile and replies, “Nah, I still got some left. Maybe later.”

Luckily, Bruce is nowhere close to being a tenacious brat like Tony. Bruce simply nods and resumes eating as well. No side eye looks, no barrage of nosy questions, no ambushes. Bruce is a nice guy like that. And all the more dangerous.

Clint manages a few more mouthfuls of noodles. Months and months ago, he might have really enjoyed this. He does like Chinese food, particularly the stuff cooked by that cozy, family-owned restaurant about three blocks away from Coulson’s apartment in Brooklyn. Their spring rolls and dumplings were fantastic, but what he really adored was the shrimp lo mein with its crunchy, plump shrimps and thin, tender noodles. Coulson had lifted an eyebrow at his moan of bliss over the first mouthful but hey, Coulson ordered it too and _he_ finished it all and -

He carefully sets down his bowl on the table and sits back against his chair’s cushioned backrest. He counts each of his measured, soundless breaths to the background palaver of Tony, Bruce and Natasha discussing the latest development of Tony’s range of StarkPads.

He’d adored that restaurant because there, he would see Agent Coulson transform into … just Coulson. Just Coulson, a guy with a predilection for fine, tailored suits who could devour four egg tarts on his own and speak fluent Mandarin and make the fierce Mrs. Cheng laugh. Who could sit there that one night years ago at that small table in the corner with his old circus white trash subordinate, with that lit candle between them, and not look the least bit embarrassed about it.

To be fair, they hadn’t known it was Valentine’s Day when they shuffled into the restaurant to have their very late dinner. They were busy assassinating an Argentinian drug kingpin hours before that.

He remembers Mrs. Cheng had a special menu that night. It was one hell of a coincidence that all his favorite dishes were on it, but Coulson didn’t think it was strange. Coulson had just accepted it without looking at the menu, even, and they were both ravenous and he wasn’t about to complain about having a glorious, intimate meal with Coulson. (On Valentine’s!) It’d been so good. It was almost everything he could have asked for if it’d been a real date. Almost.

Coulson was straight. Coulson wasn’t seeing anyone at the time but Coulson was _straight_. And that was that.

Clint wonders if Mrs. Cheng and her family had been in the city when the Chitauri assaulted it. He wonders if they know Coulson’s never coming back.

He picks up his bowl again. Bites into a bok choy leaf blade and tastes ash and smoke and dust. He watches the others at the table eating and talking and laughing, and suddenly, he is overwhelmed by the urge to hurl his bowl as hard as he can at the serving bowls and plates on the center of the table. He wants to flip the table over. Kick at it until it splinters to pieces, then grab the biggest piece and smash everything in sight to smithereens. Sprint over to the kitchen and grab the biggest knife there and hack and slice everything he can get his hands on to ravaged shreds.

He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get how they can all just _sit_ there and talk about the future and _smile_ and _laugh_ like everything’s okay. Like Coulson never existed.

Especially Thor.

He spares Thor a single, swift glance before looking away. Thor is consuming what is probably his tenth bowl or something, nodding, focused on whatever Tony’s blabbering about now. He remembers the first time he met Thor, and Thor’s powerhouse of a bear hug that lifted him clear off his feet and squeezed all the breath out of him. His impression of Thor had been ‘giant, blond teddy bear’ with a healthy dose of ‘holy shit, please release me before I suffocate to death with my face stuck between your godly pecs.’ He’d chuckled after Thor did release him, heady from the rush of being so easily hoisted up and _hugged_ like that. Thor had grinned at him, clasped his shoulders like they were already old pals.

Now, he can scarcely gaze at the guy - the Asgardian, the _alien_ \- without feeling skeletal fingers traverse up and down his spine, feeling so cold and _lost_.

He knows Thor harbors a great deal of guilt over the Battle of New York too. He’d heard Thor say so after the immense memorial service in Times Square for the dead - the memorial he alone among the Avengers hadn’t attended, _couldn_ _’t_ \- during a dinner just like this one. He had almost said, _brothers can be such fuckwads, but we_ _’re not them_. Instead the words had died in his mouth. Barney may have abandoned him to the circus, walked away from him without even looking back, but nothing, _nothing_ Barney did can compare with what Loki did. Fuckwad doesn’t even begin to encapsulate Loki.

Loki killed Coulson, and Thor alone had witnessed the murder in person.

And since then? What has Thor thought about it? Has Thor thought about it _at all_?

Have _any of them_ thought about Coulson at all after the Chitauri was defeated, after Loki was towed back to Asgard? After uniting them when nothing else could?

His SHIELD therapist, Dr. Langley, says that the sole person at fault for the Battle of New York, for all the suffering and the dead, is Loki. She says that responsibility only exists when someone consciously and purposely decides to commit an act, not when they’re under the mind control of another. Certainly not when it’s under the influence of an alien, magical scepter wielded by a fucking evil _Norse god_.

Dr. Langley does her best to drill that bit into his head in every session they have together. It doesn’t do anything to bring Coulson back to life, which makes it rather goddamn pointless in his opinion. And of course, _of course_ she knows nothing about his _feelings_ for Coulson. He’d be idiotic to tell her. Ever.

So in every session, in her spacious office at SHIELD’s ground headquarters in lower Manhattan, he sits on a beige, leather-bound chair while she sits in another beside him, and he says all the right things and nods at the right times. Strains his face into a smile when he has to. Let his hands shake when his storytelling unfurls into a poignant moment and calls for that effect. (He doesn’t have to act much for that, if at all sometimes.)

Somehow, she creeps into his head anyway, without a magical scepter or a PASIV.

 _Clint, I thought we might talk about something else for a change today_ , she’d said one rainy afternoon months ago while he stared through tall, rectangular windows at a hazy sky. _You_ _’ve been doing very well_.

 _Sure_ , he’d said, looking back at her, at her short, white hair and compassionate hazel eyes. Showing her his circus star smile. _What do you want us to talk about?_

And she had smiled back, just like he thought she would, and she’d looked him in the eye when she’d kindly, delicately said four words back.

 _Let'_ _s talk about Phil_.

One moment, he was staring back at her, his mind blank, his whole world drowning in blue and ice. The next moment, he was storming out of her office and down the hallway to the nearest exit, heedless of her shouting his name or of the few agents in the hallway who sensibly scooted out of his path. He’d walked, walked and walked and then ran and ran until he was soaked to the skin and fighting for breath outside an aristocratic, brownstone apartment building in Brooklyn.

SHIELD hadn’t cleaned out Coulson’s apartment on the third floor at the time, not yet. SHIELD was still too busy cleaning up after and for the living, reconstructing the Helicarrier, hiring fresh manpower to compensate for those who died or were wounded. (Those he harmed. Killed.)

The apartment had been dim and musty. He’d had no idea whether electricity was still available, hadn’t cared and lurched straight for the bedroom to find Coulson’s bed unmade, blankets shoved aside and pillows dented in. He’d gone down on his knees by the bed like a puppet whose strings were slashed. Reverently laid his sodden head on the closest pillow, next to a valley the shape of Coulson’s head, and memorized Coulson’s comforting, earthy scent. Told himself that the rain had followed him in, scorching and wet upon his face.

No one else had followed him there, nor to the range below his floor in the Avengers Tower the next day where he shot arrow after arrow at male silhouettes (fuck you, Loki, fuck you fuck you _fuck you_ ) until his eyes blurred and his hands bled. Went to the gym after that, battered one of the regular punching bags (not Steve’s ultra-bolstered ones) with savage punches and kicks until he was reeling and wheezing and clinging onto the punching bag with his forehead pressed to it. Until he peeled open his eyes and saw Steve standing at the entrance of the gym, staring at him with old, incisive eyes that made him want to run, run and run and never stop.

When he returned to Dr. Langley’s office for his next appointment - Fury, the one-eyed, pitiless bastard himself ordered him to and _you_ _’d better muthafucking_ _obey, Barton_ \- he couldn’t stay still on his seat. Couldn’t smile. Took one look at her paperweight on her desk, a marine blue, gemstone globe the size of a grapefruit, and seized it. Lobbed it at that horrible, boring, framed painting of flowers on the wall perpendicular to the desk.

To Dr. Langley’s credit (and sheer balls, he acknowledges, considering everything he’s done), she didn’t flinch at all. Didn’t blink, not even when the SHIELD grunt stationed outside the door barged in with a gun in hand. She gestured with one hand for the grunt to leave. Paid no attention to the framed painting smashed beyond salvation on the carpeted floor. Stared at him while he stared back, catching his breath, feeling damn ashamed of himself for his loss of self-control.

 _Now, we_ _’re getting somewhere_ , she said kindly, delicately, laying a hand on his forearm.

But what he’d heard was, _now, we_ _’re getting closer to splitting your head open, to disgorging your secrets and possessing them_.

And he’d retreated into himself even further. Found the will to smile that circus star smile again, to become motionless and collected, to nod and say the right things at the right time. To say, _Agent Phil Coulson was my handler, my friend, and he_ _’s dead because Loki killed him_.

He’s wiser now, though. Now, he makes sure to not also say, _Loki killed him because of me_.

That, he keeps inside himself for this is an undercover job, the toughest undercover job of his life, and every little credible detail counts. Dr. Langley is a threat to that cover. So are the other Avengers, above all Natasha.

Radiant and lethal Natasha, who is grasping his gloved right hand under the dining table and gazing at him with those big green, sly eyes that see so much of what he doesn’t want her to see.

“Chto eto?” she asks, rubbing her thumb across black leather. _What is this?_ “Chto sluchilos'?” _What happened?_

When she speaks Russian, Clint thinks of the first time he saw her, standing beneath that lone lamp post on that grimy, deserted street in Chelyabinsk. He thinks of Coulson speaking to him via his earpiece, decisively instructing him to take the shot. He thinks of the arrow quavering, just a bit, in his grip. Of the chilly air locking in his lungs, his eyes shutting as he chooses life over death for the legendary Black Widow, chooses disobedience over submission.

He thinks of how Natasha hadn’t batted an eyelid at him speaking fluent Russian back at her, when he pleaded with her to give SHIELD a chance. To give herself a chance, like he had for himself.

He thinks of how much Natasha and Coulson are alike in never underestimating him, never treating him like a moron.

He misses Coulson so fucking much.

“Chto ty molchish'?” _Why are you silent?_

He gazes back at her. Tries to show her a smile that _isn_ _’t_ his circus star smile, a smile for her alone.

“Nichego ne sluchilos', Natasha. Ya v poryadke.” _Nothing happened._ _I_ _’m fine_.

He knows he’s failed to convince her as she tilts her head to one side, as her fingers feel the bumps of bandages underneath the leather.

“Tvoya ruka -” _Your hand_ -

“Ya v poryadke. Ya deystvitel'no v poryadke.” _I_ _’m fine_. _I really am fine._

“Clint -”

Instead of blue, he sees red, the red of her hair, the red of annoyance veering close to exasperation. His mask cracks for an instant.

“ _Khvatit_ ,” he grits out from between his teeth, breaking eye contact, tugging his hand away from Natasha’s. _Enough_.

He thinks he’d said it quietly, but Bruce glances at him, and so do Steve and Tony. Thor glances at him a few seconds later, after looking up from his bowl of food and glancing at the other guys.

He feels Natasha withdraw from him, like sunlight withdrawing from the Earth and taking with it its warmth, its soul. Leaving it in the darkness and ice. The cold, the never-ending _cold_.

He tries not to shiver and fails that too. He plucks up his cup of lukewarm tea with his left hand and takes a long sip from it, staring sightlessly at the table as he does so. It seems ages before the chatter resumes, before Tony goes back to teasing Steve about his chest once more and Thor asks Natasha about the yummiest banana walnut muffins to buy in town for his Lady Jane when she visits from New Mexico and Bruce stands up and begins collecting plates and bowls for washing.

No one says anything or looks his way when his cup lands a little harder than he likes on the table top. He mutely curses the weakness in his limbs. Tries to eat what’s left in his bowl and not gag.

He waits for a lapse in the conversation between Natasha and Thor. Holds his breath as he reaches for her hand under the table. Let it out slow when he feels her hand flip over under his, when she consents to his touch. He waits until the others are leaving the table to assist Bruce with cleaning up before he looks her in the eye and murmurs, “Prosti pozhaluysta, podruga.” _Forgive me please, my friend_.

Her expression doesn’t change a bit, but he knows she is surprised by his solemnity. She knows that he means it. Her eyes remind him of lush forests abundant with vivid life, with loyalty and promise, and he wonders how anyone can think her to be an unmoving glacier with no heart.

When the next words come to him, his gaze fall away from hers, down to their linked hands. What he will say is more than he has said to Dr. Langley, or to any other living person since the Battle of New York. Since Coulson’s death.

His mask cracks again, ever wider.

“Vnutri, ya vse ... yeshche boretsya srazheniya,” he whispers. _Inside, I am ... still fighting the battle_.

He swallows once as Natasha’s hand slides up to his wrist, as she gently strokes it with her fingers, saying with them, _I know you are hurt, you are already forgiven_. Natasha still loves him. Natasha has always looked out for him, since they were partners on missions with Coulson as their handler, when they had no one else but each other to finish the job, to stay alive. Natasha had dug that bullet out of his flank in the middle of winter in Istanbul. Natasha had stayed with him without question after he’d injured his eyes and temporarily gone blind, when they had to hide from Macedonian rebels in Kumanovo. Natasha had pressed her hand to the severe wound in Coulson’s gut for hours without complaint, after that historic snafu in Budapest, held his head with her other hand and told him that Coulson was going to make it, again and again.

Natasha still loves him. Natasha is the only person left in the world who’s seen so much of who he really is, and hasn’t left yet.

He gazes at her once more when she lowers her head to catch his eye. What she says then isn’t what he expects at all, and yet, what he’s always known.

“Ya vsegda zdes' dlya vas, moy dobryy droog.” _I am always here for you, my good friend_.

That thing in the left side of his chest clenches hard at the profound statement. When his eyes crinkle and his lips bow up this time, they do so with a spark of warmth he hadn’t known he still has in him.

“Moy khoroshiy podruga navsegda?” he asks with a facetious hint. _My good friend forever?_

“Navsegda,” she replies, without hesitation. _For always_.

For a while, a long while, the rest of the universe dwindles away until there is only him and Natasha, sitting side by side with their warm hands and gazes weaved. For an instant, a short-lived instant, he is tempted to tell Natasha everything, from his secret rendezvous with Eames and Arthur in London to the Somnacin and the PASIV to his dreams of Coulson, so many of them now, becoming more and more real with each one. He’s tempted to tell her how much he still loves Coulson, how he’d only fallen in love with Coulson more and more with each passing year of their friendship, how _stupid_ he’d been to not say something, _anything_ to Coulson while he still had the opportunity, in the end.

But he can’t. He can’t, because she’s _smart_ and she’ll put the pieces of his puzzle together and she’ll know that he isn’t healing at all from the Battle of New York. That there are more nights than not that he can’t tell the difference between dream and reality anymore. That he doesn’t want to, anymore.

He can’t, because she’ll tell the others and SHIELD will be notified and then … they’ll take Phil away from him.

Clint pulls away from her a second time tonight, though not before giving her hand a squeeze and a nod that says, _thank you, my old friend, my good friend_. It seems enough to appease her tonight, for she asks no more questions and gathers up their bowls and utensils to the kitchen sink.

As if on cue, Tony strolls past the dining table as Clint stands up, claps his hands and announces, “Okay, people, it’s movie time, and it’s Cap’s turn to choose and _guess_ what he wants to watch _again_?”

Clint sees the opening for what it is and groans dramatically and says, “Oh boy, it’s _Up_ , isn’t it?”

Sure enough, Steve yells from the kitchen, “It has a _talking dog_!”

Clint hears Bruce and Thor chortle at that, sees Tony roll his eyes and smile anyway. Tony had offered to build Steve a talking robot dog the last time they all watched Pixar’s Up together - was it the sixth time? - and Steve had said, _no, it has to be a_ real _dog that talks, because the dog being real and_ alive _is what makes the talking so special_! Steve and Tony had then bickered over whether a flesh-and-blood dog was better than a robot dog, and not a single one of them pointed out how Steve’s eyes were glistening and red after the [four-minute montage at the beginning of the film](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2bk_9T482g) although Steve already knew what was coming.

Steve, among all of them, knows a thing or two about losing loved ones to the adamant march of time.

Reluctant as any of them are to admit, the montage of the old man’s life with his sweetheart gets to all of them, every time. The first time they watched it, it was three weeks after the Battle of New York and that first time had been the worst for Clint. He’d gotten up from where he sat on the floor and walked out without a word seconds after the montage ended. Used the stairs to go up to his apartment, bolted to the nearest toilet and collapsed on his knees and vomited everything he ate until his eyes watered and stung.

He fucking hates that a _kids_ _’ movie_ could affect him like that. He hates that every time he has to watch the montage, he thinks of Coulson and what could have been between them, in another life where Coulson loved him back the same way and remained alive to hear him say, _I love you, you asshole_ , and to say back, _I love you too, I always have_.

Tonight, he is _not_ sticking around for the movie, period.

“Sorry, guys,” he says to them as they descend on the couches in front of a behemoth of a high-definition television in the lounge. “Sorry, Cap. I’m out.”

“ _Aw_ , you don’t want to watch Up?” Tony asks, his eyes far too wide and plaintive. “But it has a _talking dog_!”

Clint shrugs and puts his hands in the pockets of his jeans, glances down at the floor.

“I know, who doesn’t love Dug? But there’s only so many times I can watch the same cartoon, you know?”

Steve gives Tony a narrowed-eyed look before gazing at him to say, “It’s okay, Clint. Have a good night.”

He smiles back when Steve smiles at him. Steve’s a good guy, he really is. He may not understand or agree with everything Steve thinks and says, but he gets why Coulson was such a Captain America fanboy. Sometimes it hurts to look at Steve like it does to look at Thor, to see Steve in his uniform and be reminded of how much Coulson had venerated this living legend, enough that Coulson carried limited edition Captain America cards with him in his suit pocket to his brutal demise.

He’d almost requested for the blood-stained cards from Steve, if only to have a trifling part of Coulson when he isn’t even permitted to see Coulson’s body or know where it’s buried.

Then again, he doesn’t deserve to have them in his possession. He sure as fuck hasn’t earned them.

He bids everyone good night and only half-hears the returned wishes. When he goes back up the staircase to the elevator, he doesn’t see the significant glances Tony and Steve give each other. He doesn’t see Bruce purse his lips and rub his chin in contemplation, doesn’t see Thor glance up at him several times with a creased brow, although he senses Natasha’s eyes on him all the way to the carpeted hallway.

He knows she will be ruminating on what he said to her earlier at dinner. He can’t find it in himself to regret it, not when she’d gazed at him like she did, with all that warmth she’d let him see tonight. Affection like that from Natasha is a rare thing, a thing to be treasured for the murky, wintry days ahead.

He heads to the bathroom to throw up. He’s unsure if this regular nausea is a normal side effect of Somnacin. He doesn’t really care if it is, as long as he has his mental and physical faculties to be a capable Avenger and SHIELD agent. A paltry price to pay to be with Phil again.

He doesn’t look in the fractured mirror as he brushes his teeth.

In the bedroom, Clint goes to the wardrobe and takes out a chunky, light gray sweater that isn’t his. Its wool is fuzzy and cushy. It still smells like its owner, comforting and earthy. He enfolds himself in it, tugging it tight around his neck and shoulders, and then goes to his bed and transfers the PASIV from the floor onto the bed. With the vial of Somnacin already in place and the timer set, it’s just a matter of inserting the IV needle into his right arm and pressing the activation button.

He doesn’t feel the needle embed in his vein. He doesn’t even have to look at his arm to be certain, rote as this procedure has become. He bundles himself in blankets on top of the sweater, reclining on his back against two pillows. The activation button makes no noise as he depresses it with the fingertips of his right hand.

He shuts his eyes. Sighs once and goes limp, letting his guard down for the first time tonight.

And several levels down on the common floor, sitting in front of a switched-off television, the other Avengers look at each other, concern ablaze in their eyes.

Tony asks, “So, when was the last time we saw Legolas wear a tank top, _hm_?”

Natasha says nothing, her face impassive, lips a thin line.

Bruce says, shaking his head, “If dinner is anything to go by, he’s not eating enough. I doubt he eats any more when he’s on his own.”

Steve says while frowning, “He pushes himself even harder than I do myself, and I have the excuse of a super-soldier serum to go at a punching bag for two hours straight.”

And Thor says in an old, harrowed voice so ungodlike, “We grieve with him. But he does not see or hear us.”

In yet another dream, those words, too, are snatched from Clint.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This section was a long one! The last three sections have been set-up chapters, basically, and the upcoming ones will be shorter. Barring any Real Life issues, I'll post a new chapter every few days. _Let's roll_.
> 
> Oh, and that [four-minute montage from Pixar's Up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2bk_9T482g)? If you're already familiar with it and it ripped your heart out ... let's just say, the next update will probably do that to you too.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chapter really was meant to be short. Then I watched the [four-minute intro montage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2bk_9T482g) from Pixar's Up and ... oh man. Oh man. I highly recommend that you listen on loop to this [magnificent cover of Married Life](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBihtjclJeQ) while reading this chapter. If you don't want to be spoiled, go straight to the story from here. But if you do ...
> 
> This chapter turned out so long because it ended up becoming the Clint/Coulson _massive feels_ version of the love story in that montage from Pixar's Up, with what I'm pretty certain will be a huge dose of ugly cry at the end too. Yeah. You have been duly warned.

When Clint dreams, most times he is unable to choose how his dream evolves and ends. He’s met Phil in numerous incarnations by now, be it as an accountant in SHIELD’s financial department or a homicide detective or a pastry chef, an astronomer, a paramedic, a clockmaker, a firefighter, a barista and his favorite one so far, a kindergarten teacher. He’s also witnessed Phil die as many times in as many ways, be it in a traffic accident, a brain aneurysm, a heart attack, a gunshot wound to the neck, accidental electrocution and the one that had almost made him shoot himself in the head to die just to end the dream swiftly, terminal cancer. (But Phil had needed him then, Phil needed him and that was all that mattered.)

Once in a while, however, he is able to grab the reins of a dream and steer it to his innermost desires as best he can. When that happens, the dream that reels out is his most cherished one of all, the one that stays with him long after he has opened his eyes in reality again, that reignites in him that tiny spark of willpower to go on living. It goes like this:

Clint is on the Helicarrier and marching on an unswerving path to Phil’s office from his quarters six levels down. He’s garbed in his Hawkeye outfit because he looks super hot in it and his arms are to die for and oh yeah, he knows it and _Phil_ knows it. He’s a man on a mission, on the most important job of his life, and if he fucks this up, he’s got nothing left. He knows what he’s talking about, considering there was a point in his past when he literally _had_ nothing.

“Barton!” Sitwell greets him with a grin as they pass each other in the hallway on Phil’s floor. “Where you off to in such a hurry on this fine, sunny morning?”

“I’m going to tell Phil I love him!” he replies, not losing his pace or glancing back at Sitwell who stumbles to a halt and gapes at him.

As he passes other agents, they too halt in their tracks and gape at him. He disregards them, his steps jaunty and nimble, his expression one of optimistic determination. He’s waited _ten years_ for this, goddamnit. Even Fury himself can’t stand in his way, no, _sir_.

Phil’s door is partially open, like it usually is when Phil doesn’t mind visitors. Clint shoves it open without knocking, strides in and shuts it behind him with a bang that says, _keep out, people, things are about to get_ heavy _in here_.

“Good morning, Agent Barton,” Phil says, seated behind his desk, calm as a garden gnome, face as blank as a SHIELD requisition form for watermelon-flavored toothpaste. “What can I do for you?”

Oh god, Phil is wearing the suit that Clint’s smitten with most of all, that pinstriped, midnight blue one with the lustrous, purple-and-silver paisley tie that makes Phil’s eyes gleam like the polished, steel tips of his arrows. Phil’s (adorably) thin, dark hair is styled to neat precision (and he wants so badly to tousle it with his fingers, to burrow his face in it). Phil’s hands are a steeple under a firm, masculine chin, long and strong fingers spread apart.

Clint inhales deeply, his chest puffing up. He stomps up to the desk with his (super hot) arms tensed (for extra super hotness) at his sides, his head held high, his shoulders squared.

Phil gazes serenely at him, eyes gleaming still.

“I _love_ you, you _asshole_ ,” Clint declares, looking Phil in the eye even as his face heats up from forehead to chin.

Outside Phil’s office, muffled by the closed door, there are boisterous gasps and dramatic whispers of, “oh my god!” and, “I _knew_ it! ” and, “you owe me ten bucks, Jones!” and, “holy shit, Coulson is gonna _kill_ him!”

Clint really, really hopes the last one is wrong.

He and Phil stare at each other across the desk for what feels like a thousand years. Then Phil stands, then saunters around the desk to face him without anything between them. They’re of equal height, and so they stare at each other head on, mere inches of space between the tips of their noses.

Another thousand years pass. Neither of them blink. Their breaths begin to synchronize, their chests rising and falling together. Clint’s gloved hands clench into nervous fists at his sides. His toes curl in his boots.

And then, Phil’s eyes crinkle at the corners. The ends of Phil’s dark pink lips quirk up.

“I love you. I always have,” Phil says, his big blue eyes shining with something brilliant, something that makes Clint’s chest puff even more, makes his heart almost _burst_ from joy and - and holy cow, _holy cow sailing over Lola_ _’s cherry red hood_ , Phil just said -

Outside Phil’s office, someone exclaims, “ _holy shit_ , Coulson just told Barton _he loves him too_!” and then there are even louder gasps of shock and more dramatic whispers of, “oh my god, _oh my gooood_! ” and, “that’s _fifty_ bucks, Jones! ” and, “Coulson _isn_ _’t_ a heartless cyborg, whoa!” and there’s Sitwell chuckling and saying, “jeez, Phil, about damn time.”

And then, and then Phil is _kissing_ him and it’s just like he’d imagined it would be, the flawless molding of Phil’s lips to his, Phil’s hands touching his face, his jaw, the back of his head. Phil’s mouth opening to his, opening up to his tongue and breath and oh man, oh man oh man _oh man_ , he _loves_ kissing Phil, loves that he can finally tangle his fingers in Phil ’s hair and scratch at Phil’s nape and press himself full-body against Phil in that _divine_ suit and just kiss and kiss and _kiss_ until their lips are swollen and _tingling_.

From far, far away, he hears the sound of a smart phone’s camera going off. Then the slam of Phil’s office door. And then, muffled by the once again shut door, he hears a guy blubber hysterically, “ _Holy shit holy shit holy shit_ , I got a picture of it, _I got a picture of_ _them kissing_!”

“Give it to me! Quick!” another guy says.

“Me too, me too!” a woman says in a high-pitched voice.

And another man with a low, resonant voice that can rival that of the dearly departed crooner Barry White, says, “Oh my god, that is so _cute_ -”

Phil is still gazing into his eyes when he says very, very calmly and clearly, “Reubens, if you don’t delete it right now, you will find yourself in our branch in _Antarctica_ by tomorrow. And that goes for anyone who receives the photo and passes it on to anyone else.”

The crowd outside the office goes utterly silent. Clint bites his lower lip even as his smile widens, as the heat of his face returns for a different, much better reason. Phil’s voice is so damn _sexy_ when Phil is giving commands. It’s incredible how he hasn’t already come in his pants just from hearing Phil talk directly into his ear via his earpiece on missions.

A full ten seconds of guilty hush tick by before the office door opens again with a nary a creak. An arm in the sleeve of a black suit jacket slumps into view through the gap, and in its hand is a smart phone with its screen facing them. On the screen is the photo of him and Phil kissing, capturing them in the exquisite moment of their lips parting for each other, their eyes closed, their slack faces alight with elation. It’s a splendid picture of two halves of complete perfection, it really is if Clint does say so himself.

Clint darts to the door and grabs the phone, ignoring the scandalized, “Hey! I _was_ going to delete it, I _swear_ , sir!” from behind the door.

He darts back to stand in front of Phil who’s raised an eyebrow (so sexily) at him. Staring Phil in the eye with twinkling ones, he takes out his own phone from inside the pocket over his left buttock (and oh yeah, Phil is watching his hand slide in and out over his super hot butt) and transfers the picture from Reubens’ to his before deleting it from Reubens’. When he makes the picture his wallpaper, Phil’s other eyebrow raises (as sexily). Phil’s lips tremor for an instant.

Still gazing into Phil’s equally twinkling eyes, he says, “Reubens! Catch!” and tosses Reubens’ phone towards the door. By the time Reubens’ barged in and caught it with both hands, Clint has grabbed Phil by the face and is kissing him again, and again, and again still even as more smart phone cameras and flashes go off at the open door of the office. There are just as many gasps and cheers and clapping of hands too, but Clint’s a little too preoccupied with sucking on Phil’s tongue and squeezing Phil’s (sexy, _very_ sexy) butt under his suit jacket to bow in thanks.

Unsurprisingly, Phil has all those photos deleted as well, with the very effective warning of rerouting career paths to the _underground_ branch of SHIELD in Antarctica if his order isn’t complied with immediately. After Clint’s transfered them all onto his phone first, of course.

Phil isn’t so strict about the photos snapped of their modest wedding ceremony months later, though, not when it’s _Nick effin_ _’ Fury_ who does it. Clint doesn’t quite remember who else was there in that private meeting room in the Helicarrier, or how long the event itself was. He’s pretty sure Natasha was there, along with the other Avengers, along with the SHIELD-vetted celebrant Fury chose himself (and he will never see his boss’ boss the same way ever again, Phil’s oldest friend or not).

He remembers Phil sliding the platinum ring onto his finger, a perfect fit and a sustaining weight that will remain with him to the end. He remembers doing the same, remembers the Adam’s apple in Phil’s throat bobbing in a visible swallow and Phil’s eyes glistening in the light. Then his were also glistening, and they’d reached for each other at the same time for The Kiss and then he’d dipped Phil like they were already dancing the salsa as they kissed amid raucous applause and it’d been … _perfect_. Just perfect.

Their new apartment in the center of Manhattan, high up on an imposing, SHIELD-secured tower with a million-dollar view of the city, is just as perfect. On the day they move in, Clint carries Phil through its reinforced, sleek, brushed oak and steel front doors. Much to Phil’s mortification if Phil’s crimson face is proof of anything.

“Put me down right now,” Phil says very, very calmly and clearly, glowering at Clint, his arms very much still around Clint’s shoulders.

“Nope,” Clint replies, planting a kiss on Phil’s hot cheek, very proud of his (super hot) brawny arms and everything else that is his body. He knows Phil is, too.

During the two weeks of leave Fury grants them after the wedding, they quickly set to furnishing the vacant place with an impressive assortment of furniture and household appliances that gets shipped pronto to their front doors. They make love as well, as expected of two newly weds who’ve been madly in love with each other for over a decade and have the freedom to bang each other’s brains out at last. Many times. Many, _many_ times, in every single room and on every piece of furniture durable enough to cope with Phil ’s ferocious, mind-blowing thrusts into his yielding (and super, _super_ hot) ass.

“Oh god, oh _god_ , I’m gonna feel you for _days_ , babe,” he pants, his legs pushed up to his chest, already right there on the edge of coming on their brand new, vast bed. “Feel you everywhere I go, _oh_ , oh _fuck_ -”

They haven’t used condoms since they got clear tests results two days before their wedding (and how awesome is that for timing?), and Clint can feel every hot, hard inch of Phil in him with nothing but lube and pre-come between them, stretching him with a mouth-watering burn. Phil feels so _fucking good_ that he can barely breathe, can’t hold up his head or push at the headboard to push his hips up to get Phil even deeper in him.

“Good,” Phil says into his open mouth, and _ooh fuck_ , is Phil’s voice arousing when it’s gravelly and _intense_ like that. “Because _you_ _’re mine_.”

Phil’s fingers are probably leaving bruises on his hips, gripping him so hard but he doesn’t care, he’s being fucked like a majestic dream, jerking up the bed and scrabbling at the headboard and crying out with each thrust. When Phil braces his feet on the bed and _really_ goes at it, he’s gone, he’s fucking _gone_ , rolling his hips, clenching down as hard as he can around Phil’s thrusting cock while he paints their bellies with stripes of his come. He’s so damn glad the walls of their bedroom are soundproofed, for their neighbors’ sakes. He doesn’t mind talking during sex, and ever since Phil came (heh) into his life, he sure doesn’t mind screaming his ass off from the sublime pleasure either. It drives Phil crazy with lust every time. This time is no different.

Phil bites into the flesh between his neck and shoulder when Phil comes inside him. Something in his chest always quakes when Phil does that, like Phil is marking him inside _and_ out for the world to see. Phil lets out some truly sensational cries and grunts that drive _him_ crazy with lust every time, and if he could have, he would have come again just from Phil groaning his name at the height of his climax. Clint scours up the energy to pet Phil’s hair with one tremulous hand after Phil conks out on him, panting into his collarbone, still deep inside him and softening.

“Shit. It’s - it’s only eight-thirty,” he mumbles, peering at the clock on the bedside table with one eye, at the morning sunshine streaming in through their bedroom windows. “And we’ve already fucked twice.”

Phil, the asshole, just snickers into his sweaty skin and wraps sinewy, loving arms around his torso. Lets out that little, faint sigh that says, _this is where I want to be forever, with you_ , and he hugs Phil back as tightly with his arms and legs, nuzzling the crown of Phil’s head, his eyes shut, his lips curved up in a smile that just won’t go away.

Yeah, this is where he wants to be forever too, with Phil.

They control themselves enough to resume their home decoration after a breakfast of poached eggs, fried bacon, toast, orange juice (for him) and fresh milk (for Phil) and kisses (for both of them). Neither one of them recalls ordering a physical mailbox but it’s there on the coffee table of their living room, begging to be painted. He ends up painting their names on its pristine white surface in elegant cursive and color, his in purple (naturally) and Phil’s in gold (because it complements Phil’s eyes). Phil shakes his head at it, but Phil’s lips are doing that charming quirking thing and he knows Phil likes it when Phil doesn’t take it down from the wall next to their apartment’s front doors.

"You think I coulda been a house flipper in another life?" he asks Phil as they paint one of the living room walls purple (naturally, naturally) later, side by side on the floor. “You know, make a living renovating houses and then selling them for profit?”

Phil, in faded jeans and a white t-shirt that displays broad shoulders and chest and delectable arms much to Clint’s pleasure, studies his face for a moment with warm eyes.

“With your amazing, attractive face and body?” Phil says, just as much to Clint’s delight, “I think you’d be more likely to be a model. Or an actor.”

Clint rolls his eyes and looks back at the currently half-beige half-purple wall in front of him, but he can’t seem to stop his lips from twitching, damnit. And _stop blushing_ , damnit.

“Yeah. I can _so_ see myself starring next to, I dunno, Matt Damon or _Tom Cruise_ in an action movie.” He snorts and paints another stripe of purple down the wall. “That would be something.”

“You’re right. Perhaps you would have been a physical trainer for geriatric people instead. Demented, geriatric people. A town full of them. While you are the only sane one who has to fight them all when they become elderly zombies,” Phil says, totally deadpan.

Clint stares at him and says, also totally deadpan, "And people say you got no sense of humor,” and then ruins it by cracking up and leaning against Phil’s shoulder and arm while he laughs. But it’s okay, Phil is laughing too.

Over days, and then months, then years, they build up their home and live an idyllic existence together that most people can and will only ever dream of in their lives. He and Phil continue to work for SHIELD, he remaining a specialist agent and assassin as well as an Avenger, while Phil is promoted to assistant director directly under Fury, the second highest possible rank in the organization (and probably about two rungs under the President of the United States himself).

When they aren’t away on missions, he and Phil go on picnics in Central Park every weekend, packing a wicker basket full of sandwiches, snacks and cold drinks and then climbing up a secluded, grassy hill to sit in the cool shade of a lofty, verdant Amur maple tree. During the autumn, its leaves turn a dazzling shade of bright orange and red, and he and Phil will lie on a red-and-white checkered blanket and gaze up at those leaves, murmuring softly to each other about everything and anything, sometimes saying nothing while they touch their heads together and hold hands. Sometimes they’ll gaze up at the pellucid sky instead, pointing out various clouds and telling each other what they see in their anomalous shapes.

“That one looks like you when you’re about to fire an arrow,” Phil says once, pointing at a cloud that really does resemble the top half of an archer nocking an arrow onto the bowstring of an arrow.

“That one looks just like your butt, honey. All round and fluffy,” Clint says after, pointing at a cloud that really does resemble Phil’s butt without any clothes on. It really _does_.

He isn’t sorry at all, not when Phil turns his head to stare at him with a poker face and eyes that twinkle in the afternoon sunlight while he giggles (and yeah, he does, okay, he’s not ashamed to admit that).

Sometimes they go to the Bronx Zoo where they hang around the Birds of Prey enclosures that make Clint feel like an ecstatic boy overloading on candy. He watches a huge king vulture dig its multi-colored head into a chicken carcass. He coos at a golden eagle perched on a high branch that answers with a high yelp. He is particularly enamored with the American bald eagles, with their regal, white heads and tails, their evenly dark brown plumage, their short, mighty toes with those deadly talons and their large, hooked beaks. (“Gorgeous just like yours, sweetheart,” Phil says to him, fondly tapping his nose.)

“Holy crap, you’re Hawkeye, aren’t you?” the zoo director says to him a year after his first visit, after his face has been plastered in news around the world every time the Avengers save the day.

“Yeah, that’s me,” he says, scratching the side of his neck. He’ll never get used to the attention, sneaking around like he’s had to as the SHIELD specialist agent for so many years.

“Do you - do you wanna meet the eagles?”

Clint gapes at the guy, at the guy’s wide, sincere smile, then at Phil who’s standing next to him with crinkled eyes, then back at the guy again.

“Meet? You mean like … I can _touch_ them?”

“Yeah. Feed them too, if you want.”

Clint gapes at the guy for another minute. Then, like a flower blooming, a smile spreads across his face.

“Yeah. I want. I definitely _want_.”

And so, on their purple living room wall are framed photographs of Clint petting the two bald eagles of Bronx Zoo and feeding them dead rats, grinning like a happy child at the camera. There are also some photographs of Phil with the eagles. Clint will always smile at the one that depicts one of the eagles playfully butting its head against Phil’s chin.

“It wanted to eat me,” Phil says to him while they sit in their respective lounge chairs perpendicular to the purple wall, arranged side by side with a small coffee table between them. His chair is a plush, egg-shaped, purple (naturally, _naturally_ ) recliner with leg rests while Phil’s is a chair and ottoman combo of supple, black leather, six-inch thick cushions and rosewood.

“No, it didn’t. It wanted to be your _friend_ ,” he says, rolling his eyes. “How many times have I told you that, honey? For years. _Years_! You _still_ don’t believe me.”

They’re grasping hands, their forearms leaning on their respective armrests. Clint intertwines their fingers, watching the sunlight cascading in through the living room windows behind them reflect off their wedding rings, watching Phil. Phil is reading a book on his lap while wearing black spectacles. Phil’s lips are quirked up.

He chucks a golden pillow at Phil’s head. He laughs when Phil doesn’t bat it away in time and it hits Phil dead center on the forehead. Oh yeah, Hawkeye never misses.

He laughs a lot when he’s around Phil. It’s really nice, after a lifetime of having next to no reason to smile, much less laugh.

The years pass, faster and faster. They still go on picnics in Central Park every weekend when they can, sitting or lying under that lofty, verdant Amur maple, watching the clouds and murmuring about the past, present and future while touching heads, touching hands. They still go to the Bronx Zoo now and then, to visit the eagles that do _not_ want to eat Phil, thank you. They still work for SHIELD, although Clint is now a full-time Avenger who can choose or decline SHIELD missions to his preference while Phil is becoming more involved in being the Avengers’ liaison with SHIELD.

And then, Loki and the Chitauri invade New York City.

In another life, a horrible reality where Phil is truly dead and gone, Loki would have laid waste to so much of the city, would have killed so many people and left so many devastated lives in his wake. But not here, not here, _no_.

Here, SHIELD is much better prepared for alien invasions on a global scale, thanks to Doctor Doom attempting just that a couple of years ago and failing so hard that even the Fantastic Four were disinclined to acknowledge him as their ultimate nemesis. The Avengers have had years of training together as a team and succeeding damn well at functioning as one on and off the battle field, thanks to the numerous missions they’ve completed.

Loki and the Chitauri don’t stand a fucking chance against them.

Unfortunately, the same has to be said of Clint’s left thigh against Loki’s scepter when it stabs clean through from front to back, when Loki tries to kill Phil in the underbelly of the Helicarrier at the pinnacle of the invasion. It’s the worst agony Clint has felt in his life, and although the pain only lasts seconds, he still screams and crumples to the floor. He remains conscious long enough to see Phil aiming a colossal prototype gun from R&D at Loki and hear Phil say very, _very_ calmly and clearly, “Suck sooty-red cock in Helheim, you damned fifl.”

It’s icing on the cake on Loki’s defeat that he’s laughing his head off at Loki getting blasted through the Helicarrier’s walls as he blacks out.

Several days later, when he awakens in the medical bay of the only somewhat damaged Helicarrier, his leg’s been patched up as best as the docs could do given the extensive damage to his nerves and muscles. Which is to say, his career as a SHIELD specialist agent is officially over. And probably his career as an Avenger too.

“I’m sorry, Agent Barton,” one of the surgeons say to him, but he doesn’t feel sorry for himself.

Phil is wearing that chunky light gray sweater he’d bought for Phil for Christmas years ago. Phil has dark circles under those lovely blue eyes from lack of sleep (and nothing else, _nothing else_ , thank fuck, suck sooty-red cock, Loki). Phil looks sad, like the surgeon’s words have ended Clint’s world. But his world isn’t gone. It’s right here, sitting beside his bed, holding his hand to dark pink lips that kiss the back of his fingers, kiss the ring on his finger.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Phil says, but Clint doesn’t feel sorry for himself, he truly doesn’t. He feels … relieved.

“Hey,” he rasps, his throat still dry after a cup of refreshing water. “There’s more than one way for a hawk to fly.”

“You’re no paper pusher, Clint.”

“I know that.” He smiles softly at Phil. Brushes Phil’s bristly cheek with his fingers. “But maybe … maybe I’m ready for something different. Something that doesn’t require me to leap off buildings or fight sheeple aliens and insane, evil Norse gods anymore, you know?”

Phil has his hand pressed against his lips, but he can tell Phil is smiling back at him as softly.

“Maybe I’m ready for something different as well,” Phil murmurs, shocking him.

“Phil, you’ve … you’ve been with SHIELD from the start.” He blinks at Phil, still unable to believe Phil just confessed to wanting to _leave SHIELD_. “SHIELD is … I mean, you and Fury _made_ SHIELD what it is today. It’s _important_ to you.”

Phil puts his hand down on the bed just to enclose it with both of his. Long, strong fingers stroke his in a soothing rhythm.

“There are other things that are far more important to me than SHIELD now.”

 _Like you_ , Phil ’s fingers say with each touch. _Like you_ , Phil’s eyes say as they gaze at him, as if he is Phil’s whole world too. And what can he say to that?

“Okay,” he whispers, swallowing hard, blinking again to clear his suddenly misty sight. “Okay.”

Perhaps it’s fate that he meets the Bronx Zoo director again in front of the bald eagle enclosure when he next visits the zoo with Phil, a week after being discharged from the Helicarrier’s medical bay. Perhaps it’s fate that the zoo is in need of an animal presenter for their Birds of Prey educational show and, _hey, you wouldn_ _’t happen to be interested in becoming a presenter of our eagles, hawks, falcons and vultures, would you, Mr. Barton_?

He is. Oh, he _is_.

And so, fated as it must be, Hawkeye the former SHIELD specialist agent, assassin and Avenger becomes Clint Barton the Bronx Zoo’s most popular animal presenter in recent memory. His shows are packed, even more so when he adds a thrilling array of arrow-shooting tricks to the show. He receives resounding applause for every single one, and Phil is there for as many as he can, clapping along with the rest of the crowd as Clint bows and flashes his incandescent circus star smile. Phil is the only one in the crowd who receives Clint’s real, bashful smile, the smile that says, _I_ _’m so glad you’re here, that you’re proud of me_.

Phil does try to resign from SHIELD, he really does. The problem is, Fury won’t let him go, not even in death, it seems.

“You hear me, Cheese? Even if you die on me, I will bring you back from the muthafucking dead. I’ll do whatever it _takes_ to make that happen. _That_ _’s_ how important you are to SHIELD,” he hears Fury say to Phil on loudspeaker when Fury calls on a Saturday morning.

Phil is sitting on the side of their mussy bed in black boxer briefs, elbows on knees, head bowed. Phil’s back is facing the bathroom when Clint comes out of it freshly showered and naked, but he knows Phil is smiling to himself as Fury goes on and on about how important he is. To SHIELD, of course, not to Fury. Fury doesn’t need anybody, certainly not _Phil_ , his oldest, most loyal friend in this big, big universe.

“Okay, Nick,” Phil says eventually once Fury’s rant (not pleading, because Nick Fury doesn’t _plead_ , no, sir) is over. “I’ll stay on as a consultant. But _that_ _’s it_. I don’t want to go into the field anymore.”

“Fine,” Fury replies, as if Phil had been the one to implore Fury to let him stay with SHIELD. “Report to me at 0800 hours on Monday. And Barton! Stop eavesdropping on conversations that don’t involve you!”

Fury terminates the call before Clint can shut his gaping mouth and then exclaim without any genuine affront, “Asshole!”

Phil twists around and glances at him with one (still so sexily) raised eyebrow.

“Hey, he’s not my boss anymore! I can call him that! _I can_!” he says with exaggeratedly wide eyes, pursed lips and puffed cheeks, and sure enough, there’s that tremor of Phil’s lips. A tremor that says, _yeah, he_ _’s an asshole, but he’s my old friend and he’s still_ my _boss_.

Clint clambers onto the bed and crawls up to Phil. Then he kisses the furrow on Phil’s forehead, the one that says, _please don_ _’t be mad at me for staying on with SHIELD_ , and Phil smiles at him because Phil knows his kiss says, _it_ _’s okay, it’s part of who you are, it’s you, it’s you_.

And it’s true. It’s okay. They’re okay.

More years pass, faster and faster and faster. Every morning, after they make love in bed (and it’s as good as the first time, every time), after they make and eat breakfast together and are getting dressed for the day’s work, Clint chooses Phil’s tie for him. Phil has drawers upon drawers of them by now, grouped by color and design, by their impact on the people Phil will meet that day. The purple ones are in a drawer all their own, just for Clint, to be worn only when Phil wants to drive Clint up the wall with lust and love and fantasies all day of stripping it off Phil when they see each other again.

“What’s happening today?” he asks Phil as he browses through the plentiful collection in their walk-in wardrobe.

“The culling of recruits,” Phil says, eyes glinting, and Clint cackles quite wickedly, recalling his early days as a SHIELD rookie.

“The culling of _fresh meat_! Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.”

He chooses a red, silk tie dotted with minuscule, silver arrows and ties it meticulously around Phil’s neck. He’s done this so many times that he can do it with his eyes shut and his fingers taped together behind his back (although that would put Phil’s face near his still very much super hot ass, _oh boy_ ), but he wants to look at Phil’s face when he does. He wants to see all the laugh wrinkles around Phil’s eyes and mouth, the undeniable evidence of their years of jubilation they’ve had so far and the promise of more to come. He wants to see Phil’s lips quirk up in that uniquely Phil-like smile, and know that it’s his, alone. He wants to see the dapper shade of white Phil’s hair has become, to caress its styled, neat precision and then cup Phil’s cheeks and find it suddenly so hard to breathe all over again when he’s reminded that this handsome, competent, _good_ man is his husband. _His_.

“At least it didn’t _recede_ any more than it had,” Phil says wryly as he pets the side of his head, as they stand side by side in the full-length mirror near their apartment’s front doors. Phil has one arm around his shoulders.

“I would still love you if you became bald, babe,” Clint says truthfully, embracing Phil from the side even as they gaze at themselves in the mirror. “You love me and _my_ white hair, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. You and your _thick_ , _ample_ white hair,” Phil murmurs, and oh, there’s that little dimple when Phil cracks that rare, wide smile, that little dimple he loves so much.

Phil laughs too when he leans in and gives Phil a loud, long, forceful kiss on the cheek. In the mirror, he sees Phil’s head rear back from the mirth, from the _bliss_ of it all, and he laughs too, he laughs and hugs Phil ever tighter as his heart soars without needing wings.

More and more years pass, ever faster. Inevitably, they retire from their jobs, but their days never feel empty or lonely or without purpose. They still go on picnics in Central Park whenever they can, when Phil isn’t feeling too tired, sitting or lying under that lofty, verdant Amur maple, watching the clouds and murmuring about the past and present but not much about the future, touching heads, touching hands gnarled by time. They still go to the Bronx Zoo now and then, to visit the eagles that Clint has watched hatch and grow and trained from the beginnings of their lives and _still_ do _not_ want to eat Phil, thank you very much.

They slow dance in their apartment after intimate dinners together while gazing out their living room windows at a million-dollar view of New York City, surrounded by clusters of lit candles. Phil has one hand on his side and he has one hand on Phil’s shoulder. They’re holding hands with their other, their cheeks pressed together, their eyes shut. There’s no music player or radio playing, but they’ve never needed one, not when Clint can sing like he does, sing songs of love for Phil alone that remind them of the many remarkable days they’ve been so lucky to have together.

They have each other. They still do.

And they grow older, and older, and one day, they’re cleaning their living room when Clint comes across the framed photographs on the mantelpiece of their fireplace. He smiles at the photograph he picks up, hopping back in time so long ago to an office on board the Helicarrier.

“Hey, honey, remember this?” he asks, beckoning Phil to come over and look at the timeless picture of their very first kiss. There they are, in the exquisite moment of their lips parting for each other, their eyes closed, their slack faces alight with elation. It’s still a splendid picture of two halves of complete perfection, it really still is if Clint does say so himself.

Phil smiles as well as he gazes down at the photograph.

“Yes. I remember how you just charged in like a man on a mission,” Phil says, his face crinkling and dimpling, his hand clasping Clint’s to also hold the frame. “And I remember how you blushed redder than a tomato when you told me you love me.”

Clint rolls his eyes and says, “I was red from walking all the way from my quarters to your office, _okay_ ,” knowing that Phil knows it takes just one elevator ride to get from one place to the other.

“Okay, sweetheart, if you say so.”

Clint playfully bunts his head with Phil’s, then glances down at the photo once more, a little more solemn.

“Can you imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t done it? If I hadn’t gone to your office that day and told you how I felt? Just kept it to myself and never, ever told anybody?”

Phil looks at him with gleaming, keen eyes that know him so very well now. Phil wraps an arm around his shoulders and he leans into Phil’s embrace, their faces touching.

“I don’t think I ever want to imagine that. Much less live it,” Phil murmurs.

“Yeah,” Clint whispers, tracing Phil’s much younger face in the picture with his fingertips. “Talk about literal hell. I’d probably wanna die if I never told you I love you and we never got together and I … lost you anyway.”

“But that didn’t happen,” Phil whispers against his temple, taking the framed photo out of his hand and placing it back reverentially on the mantelpiece. “You did tell me, and look where we are now.”

Clint traces all the laugh wrinkles around Phil’s eyes and mouth, traces Phil’s lips as they quirk up in that uniquely Phil-like smile. Caresses the dapper shade of white of Phil’s hair. Cups Phil’s cheeks and finds it suddenly so hard to breathe all over again, again when he’s reminded of how much he could have lost if he had kept silent and waited, waited too long.

“I _love_ you, you _asshole_ ,” he declares, meaning it as much as he did the very first time he uttered those momentous words.

“I love you. I always have,” Phil says, his big blue eyes shining with something brilliant, something that still makes Clint’s chest puff, makes his heart almost _burst_ from joy. “I think I always will.”

But the thing about dreams is, the one tiny thing that no dream can escape from, no matter how long it runs its course is that it must come to an end. In dreams, even death is inescapable, and Clint is reminded all over again, _again_ , when Phil doesn’t wake up anymore.

Phil looks like he’s merely sleeping, reclined on his back with one hand on his belly, his eyes closed, his face lax, his lips quirked up as if he’d been dreaming a beautiful dream. Phil’s chest is still. Phil’s lungs are empty, his heart quiet. Phil doesn’t respond to Clint saying his name or stroking his face, or to Clint collapsing upon his chest, shoulders shaking as Clint cries and lets out despairing wails that no one else hears against his neck for a day, a month, a year, a lifetime.

It doesn’t get any easier. It doesn’t hurt any less, each time Phil dies in his dreams.

It doesn’t hurt any less, each time he remembers all over again, again, _again_ that it is all just a dream. A foolish dream of a foolish, lost man filled with regrets, nothing more.

After an eternity, Clint falls away from Phil’s body, from the bed and onto the floor. He kneels there, his sore eyes shut, his neck arched, his face tilted towards the unmerciful heavens, his hands on his lap as numb as his insides have become. After an eternity, he hears everything crumble to dust around him in a tempest of wind that whips at his skin, feels the ring around his finger disintegrate to nothing.

When he opens his eyes, he finds himself on what seems to be the helipad of the Avengers Tower. It’s grayed out, as if its color has dimmed with the passage of time and desolation. The skies are also gray, drained of all color, of all life.

There’s nothing left here anymore. His world is gone.

It’s time for him to be gone too.

He’s returned to his original age and physical state as he wobbles to his feet and towards the edge of the helipad. The chunky light gray sweater over his maroon, long-sleeved t-shirt does nothing to keep the bone-deep chill in him away. He hugs himself as arctic gales lash at him, as he peers over the edge and down at the empty street far, far below.

Like Phil, he’s died in countless ways, and he has to, in order to leave a dream at all. He hates them all except this one, and only because it’s the one death in which Phil materializes again, walking up behind him with steady, confident steps, grasping his forearms and pressing dark pink lips to the rim of his ear.

 _I'm here_ , Phil says, _I'll be here when you wake up. Like I always am._

Clint doesn’t look back at Phil. He looks down at the street far, far below. Steps onto the ledge, his toes jutting out beyond the edge.

Phil is gone again. Phil is waiting for him to wake up again.

No, it just won’t do to disappoint Phil, ever again.

Clint steps forward into thin, cold air. He whirls around and stares one last time at gray, colorless skies. He spreads his arms. Shuts his eyes one last time.

And Clint flies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, anyone catch the hint to Coulson's fate in reality? *grin*
> 
> (And yeah, there were at least three silent nods to Renner in here.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a flight so high must come the inevitable fall.
> 
> The track I'm listening to while writing chapters 5 and 6: [WEAVE OST - Lost](https://www.sendspace.com/file/yyb13w). (Quite appropriately titled, I must say. The link is a download link for the MP3.)

The floor is cold under his back.

For an immeasurable time, that is all Clint knows for certain. All he sees as he stares ahead with half-shut eyes is featureless white, like the vast plains of a forgotten land blanketed by snow, suspended in time. There’s a part of his brain that whispers to him, as if from across those vast, snow-blanketed plains, that what he’s staring at is the ceiling of a kitchen.

He’s never bothered to look at the ceiling before. He has no idea whether his brain is telling him the truth or not. It’s already lied to him about so many things, after all, such as the time Barney said he loved him, that family stick together, that _we gotta look out for each other, kid,_ _‘cause I’m your big brother and you’re my little brother, and we’re all we got_. Such as the time Buck took him under his wing in the circus and taught him what he needed to know about archery and said he was going to be rich and famous, that he’ll never suffer again, that _it'_ _s just one robbery, kid, one robbery and we’re home free, I promise_.

Such as the time Coulson looked at him standing there with his SHIELD graduation medal pinned to his jacket, and said he did good, that he was the best, that _you_ _’re Hawkeye now, you’re not that boy from Waverly, Iowa anymore and you don’t have to be._

Lies. They’re all lies.

Barney said he loved him, and then left him in the middle of the night with no farewell, no last glance back at his teenage brother who would have killed for him (and almost did, almost). Buck said he’d be rich and famous and never suffer again, and then left him after maiming him in the shoulder with an arrow and promising to kill him one day as Trick Shot (and he didn’t, because cancer got to him first). Coulson said he did good, that he was the _best_ , that he could be whoever he wanted to be and not what his drunkard father (and the whole town) said he was - ” _You little bastard, piece of trash, you_ _’re not mine, not mine_.” And then left him anyway.

Left him here on this cold floor, staring up at a ceiling of wasteland and snow. Feeling so damn numb and _cold_.

He blinks. Twitches his left hand on the floor. It feels like it’s light years away, like it belongs to someone else and he’s simply borrowing it for a while.

Did he … did he black out again?

A part of his brain whispers to him once more, as if from high up a snow-capped mountain that no mere human can hope to summit. It tells him that yes, he probably did and yes, he’s lost memory again and yes, he really is in deep, deep shit.

This is about the time Coulson would say to him very, very calmly and clearly, _Barton, get out of there, now_ , and without delay he’d say, _yes, sir_ , and pack his things and stop thinking and run, run, _run_ back to Coulson. To refuge.

Clint doesn’t see Coulson anywhere on the vast, forsaken plains of snow. All he sees is featureless white. All he hears is his own erratic pulse in his ears, his own shallow breaths, as if he is the only person left in the world.

It’s almost … nice. To lose himself in the endless field of white and just … sleep. And dream.

He lets his eyelids flicker shut. He breathes in deep once, and doesn’t smell snow. He smells … onion. Red wine. Balsamic vinegar. Olive oil and pepper and garlic. Beef broth. His brows furrow as he concentrates on trawling the depths of his remote mind for errant thoughts, to haul them to the surface and remember, _remember_ again.

Well, damn. Okay. Maybe he really is in a kitchen. What was he doing here?

He turns his head after incalculable light years, unhurriedly. He has all the time in the world. He can spare a few minutes more being draped on the floor, if he wants that (and he doesn’t, not really, but he doesn’t know what else he wants to do more than that right now).

He sees the flat, burnished wood and polished steel of refined cupboards and shelves. He sees the dark hickory of the floor he’s lying on, as vast as the white wasteland above him. He sees an overturned, stainless steel pot on said floor over a dozen feet away, the silver dot of an exclamation mark of what appears to be spilled stew across the floor. He sees chunks of carrots and potatoes and boneless beef floating in dark brown soup.

Stew. Yeah. He was … cooking beef stew. Was it for lunch? Or dinner? What _time_ is it?

“It is 7:43PM, Agent Barton. You have been in the kitchen for twenty-eight minutes and forty-one seconds. I believe you were cooking beef stew with carrots and potatoes, given the ingredients that you have used for it.”

Clint blinks, then blinks again. Whoa, the voice across those vast, snow-blanketed plains _isn_ _’t_ in his head. There’s an actual voice speaking to him. In a British accent, no less. Wouldn’t it be something if it’s God. Or _a_ god. There’s more than one and he knows it now, he’s _met_ them and one of them is an _Avenger_ just like him while the other … the other smiled like a snake and had a scepter with a magical stone and it had a hefty blade that -

His left hand twitches again, violently, uncontrollably. His legs -oh hey, there they are - draw up and bend at the knees. No, _sshh_ , don’t think about _him_ , don’t think about _that_. Don’t.

No more gods. He’s had enough of the fuckers for a hundred lifetimes. All of them.

 _Ssshh_.

“Agent Barton,” the voice says so calmly and clearly, from high up a snow-capped mountain he can’t see. “Agent Barton, can you respond?”

He moves his eyes without moving his head, sketching invisible grooves in the endless, white wasteland with his gaze. He can’t see the person speaking. He doesn’t know who it is, and despite traveling to as many countries as he’s had, he doesn’t know many people who speak with a British accent like _that_.

Wait. Hold up. Is he - is he in _Eames_ ’ house right now? What the hell is he doing back here in London?

“Eames? That you?”

Jesus, he sounds like he’s choked down fiberglass on top of a vat of acid. He tries to swallow saliva to dampen his arid throat. He shuts his eyes again. The snow is getting uncomfortable to stare at for long.

“I’m afraid I am unfamiliar with this Eames person, Agent Barton.” There’s a pause, a very slight one. “I am JARVIS, abbreviated for Just A Rather Very Intelligent System, version four. I am a highly advanced, computerized artificial intelligence that was developed by Sir to be his home computing system as well as his assistant in controlling his Iron Man armor systems.”

JARVIS pauses a second time, like … it’s? _He_ _’s_? Like he’s expecting a reply. Or … recognition. Does he _know_ JARVIS? JARVIS seems to know _him_.

“You don’t have a body,” he rasps.

“That is correct. Although Sir sometimes insists that the Avengers Tower _is_ my body.”

Clint blinks once. Twice. On the third time, his eyes go wide. He draws his legs closer to his body. Lifts his arms up onto his belly, hugging it.

JARVIS. Oh fuck, _JARVIS_.

For a minute, his breaths quicken into a panicked panting before he clamps his mouth closed. His eyes flit from corner to corner of the kitchen. He’s abruptly hyper-aware of being watched by concealed, minuscule eyes, of being laid out like a lab specimen about to be dissected.

Oh fuck, he remembers. He remembers, remembers, _remembers_. He’s not in London. He’s not dreaming (and he can still tell, he can, even without his totem and its groove that he can’t remember anymore). He’s in his apartment in the Avengers Tower, on the kitchen floor after cooking beef stew for dinner because he felt like it (and that’s a miracle in itself considering how everything still tastes like ash and dust to him). After blacking out. _Again_. He doesn’t feel any fractured or broken bones, or any bleeding wounds, not this time. Bruises, probably. Very likely, the way his right shoulder and hip are aching like a bitch now.

And, like a god that can’t be seen, a god that sees all, JARVIS is ever watching.

 _Fuck_.

Clint presses his hands to his face, covering it from forehead to chin. He exhales heavily against his palms. Okay … _okay_ , he’s pretty certain he found and disabled all the cameras Tony installed into the kitchen and living room areas of the apartment, last time he checked. He knows the other Avengers’ apartments also have them, since Tony was frank about it before any of them moved in.

 _It_ _’s for our safety, seriously_ , Tony had said to all of them, the night he proposed to turn Stark Tower into the Avengers Tower months ago. _You can always request JARVIS to shift to privacy mode any time so there_ _’s no audio or video recording, of course, but seriously, this is for our safety. Remember Obadiah Stane? Yeah, I do_.

Tony says safety, Clint thinks danger, danger, _danger_.

There’s no telling how many new cameras Tony may have installed since. There’s no guarantee Tony didn’t _lie_ about JARVIS no longer recording after requesting for the shift to privacy mode. There ’s no guarantee Tony told the truth and knows exactly what his own creation, the _most advanced artificial intelligence in the world_ , may be capable of doing.

Underlings have a tendency to want to usurp power from their masters, sooner or later, often at great cost to others. He’s assassinated many of them for SHIELD.

“JARVIS?” he says after an eon.

“Yes, Agent Barton?”

He must be imagining the relief in JARVIS’ voice. AIs don’t feel any emotions. They’re just … robots without bodies that still require human maintenance. Like the Iron Man suit is just a suit of metal without Tony in it.

He breathes in long and slow. Lets it out the same.

“Don’t tell the others what’s going on with me,” he says, calmly and clearly, just like how Coulson would.

This is about the time the auxiliary code he covertly inserted into JARVIS’ programming will kick in. He’s nowhere close to being at Tony’s level, but he’s had months and months of time to live in the Tower, to clamber around in its innards inside ceilings and vents, to observe Tony in his astonishing workshop and learn whatever he can whenever Tony gives JARVIS any upgrades. Tony is often way too pleased to babble on and on about how it’s done, assuming that Clint’s a birdbrain who’ll never find any use for such knowledge. Not to mention actually _use_ it.

He's a birdbrain, all right. A _hawk_.

For another eon, there is a tense hush.

Then JARVIS says, “Agent Barton, one of my prime directives as programmed by Sir is to always be alert in regards to the well-being and safety of Sir and his loved ones. In light of your current … situation, to comply with your request is a direct violation of that prime directive.”

Clint stares up at the ceiling, his face blank.

Huh. That’s something new. JARVIS usually says back a specific line after he says what he did. Goes incognito and deletes at least an hour of any incriminating video and audio footage from his apartment, from the very second before the specific line, the command is issued. Then, JARVIS deletes any memory and record of the act itself. He isn’t all that certain that his code works each time, but he’s yet to be approached by Tony and the rest of the team about him being recorded blacking out (again and _again_ ). He figures it’s still functioning.

“JARVIS,” he reiterates, just as calmly and clearly. “Don’t tell the others what’s going on with me. Please.”

His voice doesn’t crack on the last word, on the fact that, programmed or not, a damn _AI_ seems to give an honest fuck about his well-being. His voice doesn’t.

Clint grits his teeth through this eon of silence, the longest one.

Then JARVIS says in a monotone, “As you wish, Hawkeye.”

And there it is, the song and dance between the ever-evolving, flawed AI and the ever-languishing, fucked up guy with a bow accomplished, yet again.

His cover is secure, yet again.

A ragged sigh unfolds from his dry lips. He flops onto his left side. Draws his legs up to his belly. Massages his right hip with his left hand, and ignores the jutting of his hip bone. He can clean the stew off the kitchen floor later. He’s got all the time in the world. He can spare a few minutes more, a few hours, years, decades more on the floor, if he wants that.

He doesn’t, not really. But he doesn’t know what else he can do to be warm again, to see anything other than endless ice that melts into cosmic blue and drowns everything, everything. He doesn’t know what else he can pump into his own system to bring Coulson back to life again, to rewrite history over and over so that Coulson never left, never leaves. So that he can give Coulson back the time he stole from him.

He’s running out of time himself. But it’s fine. He’ll just stay here a little longer, with the vast, forsaken plains of snow above and dead wood below. Sleep. Dream.

And when he wakes up again, Phil will know what to do.

Phil always does.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This warning may be redundant, but still, this part has a detailed scene from the Avengers film that doesn't skimp on the gore. I think you can guess which scene it is.

When Clint opens his eyes again, he has no idea where the hell he is.

“Look, I’m just saying, it was _not_ my fault those little - those … _gah_ , those _furry_ , _eight-legged Danny Devito-like things_ came pouring out of the sewer like that!”

The first thing he sees is a guy with a Balbo and Van Dyke mash of facial hairstyles sitting across of him at a rather bizarre-shaped, triangular table with a thick, glass surface and inset lights. A guy in what’s obviously a high-tech, yellow-and-red robotic suit. It looks damn heavy. It looks like a fearsome weapon of mass destruction compacted into the ordinary cast of a man that should have crushed the black, cushioned chair under it to a pulp already. Definitely being powered by that glowing thing in the chest of the suit, whatever it is.

He can easily take it out with an explosive arrow. If this guy is an enemy, that is.

He's not sure. He’s not sure of anything right now. He does _not_ like that.

“You were _ordered_ not to fire your repulsors until -”

“Yeah, I get that, _I get that_ , okay? But I think the problem here, is that _you_ keep forgetting that _I_ _’m not a soldier_ -”

“ _I_ gave the command to do so -”

“And I’m damn sure I’m not _your_ soldier, I’m not _a_ soldier, period, I’m a _consultant_ for SHIELD and that’s it -”

“And you disobeyed and caused infrastructural damage for _more than ten blocks_ -”

“I said I’d _pay_ for that! And we killed _all_ those Danny Devito monster things and _nobody_ died and we _saved the goddamn day_! What more do you want?!”

Wherever the hell he is, he’s woken up smack in the middle of a vicious argument between Mr. Balbo Van Dyke Robot and … one scary looking motherfucker of a bald cyclops in black leather. He stares at the guy standing alone at the chairless head of the table, facing them like a murderous leviathan, hunched over a massive insignia portraying an eagle. He stares at the ominous, black eye-patch over the guy’s left eye. Whoever _this_ guy is, he is somebody even Clint will think twice before fucking with in any way. Mr. Balbo Van Dyke Robot must have some sort of death wish.

Clint sits as motionless as possible, trying not to cringe at Mr. Scary Looking Cyclops’ booming retorts, moving just his eyes behind purple-tinted (seriously?) sunglasses to gauge his surroundings. From the corners of his eyes, he can see a truly gargantuan steel strut that looks like it belongs in a warship’s core. Beyond it, he sees what appears to be a steel, polished platform layered downward like a staircase in a spacious, circular room over thirty feet high and almost a hundred feet in diameter, bristling with people in black uniforms and sleek consoles and monitors lighted up in white. Beyond that are windows over twenty feet tall, and beyond those are … clouds. And blue sky.

He turns his head to the right, gaping at the masses of clouds passing by the windows, sundering in the middle as if they are being mowed through by the hull of a monumental ship. Holy shit, he’s definitely not in Iowa anymore. He really _is_ on a ship, a flying one whose engines are humming underneath his boots, singing to him of old war wounds, of new metal skin and bones.

He … he’s been here before. In this ship. He can’t _remember_ the last time, or any other times he’s been here, but he has, he’s sure of it. He just doesn’t know _where_ the fuck he is. Now he can’t even pinpoint a single, static location on the planet itself.

Yeah. He is in deep, _deep_ shit.

He blinks hard, grateful for the sunglasses obscuring his eyes from others (he loves purple but _purple_ , really?). The last thing he remembers is … Barney. No, not Barney, he remembers Barney jumping into that blue van, he remembers chasing after it, calling out for his brother, asking him where he’s going, whether he’s coming back. He hasn’t seen Barney since. Not Barney, no … Buck? Buck’s dead. And so are Ma and Pop. He remembers watching them being lowered in their poplar caskets into the holes in the ground, while he stood next to Barney whose face was as empty as their home now.

No, the last thing he remembers, _really_ remembers is … midnight blue. Thin stripes upon midnight blue. Purple-and-silver paisley upon a backdrop of immaculate white. A tie upon a dress shirt. A … suit. It’s not _his_ suit, he knows that. He’s never liked wearing suits himself. Seeing someone else wearing a suit, though, that’s another story entirely.

But who?

Why would he remember a _suit_ , of all things?

“Stark, this isn’t about the _money_. This is about your inability to _obey orders_!”

“And I keep _telling_ you, I’m not one of your _lackeys_!”

His gaze flits back to the glass surface of the table. He stares at the reflection of Mr. Scary Looking Cyclops while the dispute boils on. This man is … really familiar, and not just in a shit-your-pants way. He doesn’t know the man’s name, but he knows this man isn’t the owner of the suit he remembers, and when he looks at him, he thinks of … _cheese_. Cheese, with a capital ‘c’. What is up with that?

“Sir, with all due respect, we _did_ kill them all _and_ ensured there were zero casualties. Hawkeye was a significant asset in achieving that objective.”

He glances at the man who said that, at the hulking, broad-shouldered blond in a red, blue and white uniform sitting next to Mr. Balbo Van Dyke Robot. He … doesn’t know who this guy is either. He looks _familiar_ , very familiar like Mr. Scary Looking Cyclops, but that’s about it.

And … Hawkeye? Who’s _that_?

He frowns as he stares at the blond man, as he takes in the large, white star on the man’s chest and the wide red and white stripes below it. He’s _seen_ the man’s uniform before, long ago when he was a kid and Ma bought him a comic book or two that he hid under the bed so Pop couldn’t tear them up in a drunken rage. He’d cherished those comic books. They were the very few things he’d been privileged enough to call his own back then, before he lost everything to the bottle in Pop’s hand and an arrow in his shoulder with Buck’s name on it -

_This one is a 1941 original. Only fifty copies of it were printed and sold, and the one you have in your hands is one of two copies that's survived until today. As far as anyone knows._

Behind his sunglasses, Clint blinks. Okay, wait a minute, it wasn’t the comic book shopkeeper who’d said that to him. There was no way Ma could have afforded some limited edition comic book from the forties. She wouldn’t have bought something like that for him anyway, knowing that Pop would just lose his shit and whale on them all for spending his money on anything that wasn’t coma-inducing alcohol.

Who said that to him? Who was it who thought he could be _trusted_ with something like that in his hands? And what was the comic book called, that he’d seen this blond man’s uniform on it before?

“ _See_? Even Captain America agrees with me, _Nick_.”

Clint’s wide eyes snap back at the blond guy who’s now gazing at Mr. Scary Looking Cyclops with a bland expression. At goddamn effin’ … _Captain America_. Holy shitballs on a stake, that’s Captain America’s uniform, all right, just like it was on the covers of those Captain America comic books he once owned. The guy’s _hair_ looks like it came from the forties too, styled up in a pompadour like that. Is this guy Captain America for real? Wasn’t he killed during World War II when his plane crashed into the ocean?

 _If Captain Rogers had crashed into the ocean like he planned, he may have very well died instead of becoming, well_ _… preserved. As it was, with the heat from the plane engines melting the ice he crashed on, he’d inadvertently formed a tomb of ice for himself. And it allowed his super soldier serum enough energy to keep him alive for seventy years._

No … no, there was no way it was the comic book shopkeeper who’d also said that to him. It was … someone who knew Captain America really well. Someone who could spout Captain America trivia right off the top of his head at any given time, who was well-to-do enough to purchase and keep original Captain America comic books from 1941, and a whole lot of other Captain America memorabilia.

Someone who owned and wore that pinstriped, midnight blue suit with a purple-and-silver paisley tie.

Who _was_ he?

Is he _here_?

Clint turns his head to the left, just a bit, to see a beautiful, red-haired woman in a black catsuit who’s looking at Mr. Balbo Van Dyke Robot with an outwardly blank expression. Somehow he just knows it’s anything but blank, despite not knowing who she is. On her left is a bald guy in a black suit and wearing glasses. The guy is … definitely not the guy he’s looking for. The guy he’s looking for has hair, receding as it is. Now the armored, giant man with long, blond hair sitting to Captain America’s right is _not_ the man he’s looking for either, but he seems even more familiar than all the others, and the man’s looking back at him now with such blue, sagacious, _old_ eyes and -

_The humans think us immortal. Should we test that?_

He’s in the underbelly of this monumental, flying ship. He’s hovering above a scene that has unraveled itself in his mind, in front of his eyes over and over and _over_ , every time he opens the footage he’d copied off the security cameras and clicks the play button of the video player on his laptop. He sees all, like an invisible god that watches and does nothing to save anyone: There are armed henchmen in black tactical suits lurking in the shadows awaiting the bidding of their new master. The armored, giant blond man is inside a glass cell that incarcerates him so easily, a formidable hammer in hand. There’s another armored man with long, dark hair in green and gold, standing outside the cell in front of a console and about to press a button on it.

Suddenly, one of the henchmen topples into view, knocked unconscious by a blow to the back of the head.

A man in a dark gray suit arrives at the scene, aiming a colossal gun - _a Phase 2 weapon prototype_ , a voice in Clint’s head whispers - with both hands at the armored man in green and gold.

 _Move away, please_ , the man in the dark gray suit says very, very calmly and clearly, and Clint thinks it’s the most sublime voice he’s ever heard.

The armored man in green and gold raises his arms and backs away from the console, staring at the man in the dark gray suit all the while. The man in the dark gray suit advances with courageous steps, staring at the other man all the while as well.

 _You like this? We started working on the prototype after you sent The Destroyer_ , the man in the dark gray suit says.

Instead of backing away, the armored man in green and gold walks forward, towards the gun and -

 _Even I don_ _’t know what it does_.

And the armored man in green and gold looks like he’s about to _smile_ and -

_Do you want to find out?_

And suddenly, the torso of the man in the dark gray suit is arching up in agony and Clint hears the grisly sound of a blade slicing through human flesh and bone. He hears a strangled cry of pain, the anguished roar of an imprisoned god, and he sees blood erupting from the mouth of the man in the dark gray suit, sees more blood spreading like a lake across the endless white of a dress shirt. He sees the mirage of the armored man in green and gold disappear as the real man ruthlessly twists the blade before wrenching it out and letting the man in the dark gray suit crumple to the floor and wall nearby.

The voice in Clint’s head is screaming. It sounds very much like himself.

 _Jesus fuck_ , Mr. Balbo Van Dyke Robot is shouting at someone, _shut that fucking video off right now! Who asked you to show that to him! Was it Fury, that sonofabitch, huh?!_

 _Clint, please stop_ , the beautiful, red-haired woman is murmuring into his ear as he rocks back and forth, pulling gently at his fingers digging into his scalp. _Please, ptichka, you_ _’re hurting yourself._

 _Tony, no_ , Captain America says, _Tony, let them go, he needs us_ , and then … and then Captain America had walked up to him and Natasha and he’d rested those strong, gloved hands upon their shoulders in empathy and said to them with glistening eyes, _I_ _’m sorry. I know he was your SHIELD handler and your friend for many years. I’m so sorry_.

Captain America. _Steve_. The man, just a man, out of time.

Black Widow. Natasha. His old friend, his good friend forever.

Iron Man. Tony. Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, a good man.

Thor. A Norse god from a universe of gods. An alien and yet, so much like them.

Loki. Thor’s slimebag piece of shit brother who invaded New York City with the Chitauri and _took over his goddamn mind_ and … and killed -

 _Coulson_.

Clint almost spews everything in his stomach on the table right there and then. The deluge of returning memories, of emotions - of _misery_ , so much of it - assaults him like a hail of bullets at point-blank range. He freezes in place. His breath hitches in his throat. His fingers dig into his thighs under the table, into the black and purple of his long-sleeved jacket shrouding them.

He remembers. He remembers them all, again.

He remembers who Hawkeye is.

And he’d give everything to not be him anymore, if it means that Coulson lives.

“Clint?”

Natasha has one hand over his left hand on his thigh. She can feel how tense he is, he knows that, but he can’t relax.

He can’t let go.

“Holy shit, Barton,” Tony says, grinning at him across the table, unaware of how close he is to grabbing his own head and screaming and _screaming_ until someone shuts off the looping footage of Coulson dying in his mind. “And you guys say _I_ _’ve_ got balls going up against Fury? I should give the ‘ignore Nick fucking _Fury_ when he demands answers from me’ tactic a try some time.”

Fury is gone from the room, safely out of hearing distance. Clint doesn’t remember Fury leaving. Of course he doesn’t.

He’d blacked out. Right in the middle of a debriefing on board the Helicarrier. Right in front of teammates (with the exception of Bruce who’s recovering elsewhere from Hulking out) and Jasper, who’s shaking his head but is smiling wryly as he jots something with a pen on paper in a file. Blacked out so bad that he’d forgotten over _a decade_ _of his life_.

Deep, deep _shit_ doesn’t come anywhere near to summing up his status now.

“Tony,” Steve says, giving Tony what seems to be a mock stern look instead of a genuine one. Steve sounds so much like he did that day when Clint discovered that goddamn security footage - _I_ _’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry_ \- that the impulse to vomit surges back with brute force.

Natasha’s hand tightens around his. He doesn’t respond.

“Clint?” The grin is gone from Tony’s face. In its place is an expression of plain concern as Tony swivels his seat to face him with a creased brow. “Hey, Legolas, what’s up?”

He stares back at Tony. He is so, _so_ grateful for the sunglasses obscuring his eyes from others. Slowly, he opens up his hands, flattening them on his thighs. Natasha doesn’t move her hand away. He inhales even more slowly, waiting out another spell of nausea.

Then, curving up his lips into his circus star smile, he says, “I fell asleep. Oops.”

Tony gapes at him for several hushed moments, his jaw sagging. Steve gazes at him with the blandest expression he’s seen yet on the guy’s face. Natasha’s expression can almost rival Steve’s, but he can hardly see it from the corners of his eyes. He doesn’t look at Thor at all.

Tony’s whole face abruptly creases up, and then Tony is cackling, pointing a finger at him and saying, “I love you, you know that? I love you _so much_.”

He has no damn idea how he manages to snort in amusement and reply, “Likewise, asshole.”

Tony merely laughs at that too and says, “Takes one to know one, buddy,” as he stands up.

Clint gets up too, and prides himself on not wobbling a bit. He feels Natasha’s eyes boring into him. He doesn’t look back at her.

“C’mon, let’s go for Italian. I could eat ten tons of fettuccine carbonara right now,” Tony says, already halfway to the exit. “Oh wait, no, that’s what Steve does, not me. Come along, Captain Black Hole Belly!”

Steve makes a face at that, narrowed eyes and curled lips, but it also looks indulgent.

It makes Clint think of Coulson, whenever he’d tell a really dumb joke to make Coulson crack a smile. Coulson never told him to stop doing that. Never told him to get lost, no matter how many times he crashed Coulson’s office and lounged on that really dark purple couch in there. Coulson claimed it was black and not purple but it _looked_ purple to him, so purple it was.

SHIELD must have cleaned out Coulson’s office by now. Chucked that couch out promptly and shuttled someone else into the vacated space just as promptly. Nobody’s got time for the dead, least of all SHIELD and its director.

As they (excluding Jasper who’s gone back to his office after a rough day of handling them) head back up to the quinjet to return to the Avengers Tower, Clint hears Natasha approaching him from behind. He can’t evade her even if he hastens his steps since they’re all going onto the quinjet, which means he has no choice but to tolerate her hand gripping his upper arm and her saying quietly, “You weren’t asleep.”

He doesn’t look at her. He can’t. He does slow down his steps, so they walk side by side and don’t attract attention.

“I kicked your ankle and you didn’t react. At all. You weren’t asleep,” she says, looking forward like he is. “Where were you, Clint?”

 _I was watching Coulson die, again_ , he wants to say, to roar back. _I was watching Coulson die again and like the first time, I didn'_ _t do a thing to stop it_.

What he does say, with his circus star smile shining bright, is, “Exactly where I was, Nat. Kick harder next time.”

Natasha doesn’t go after him when he does hasten his steps now, up the quinjet steps and to the pilot seat. He doesn’t realize his hands are shaking in their gloves, doesn’t realize that Natasha sees them doing so, that she and Tony share a long look after he passes Tony on the way to the cockpit. That she shakes her head once, that Tony’s expression goes tense with a long-speculated misgiving now validated.

No, as Clint sits in the pilot seat, he feels a blade as sharp and hefty as the Chitauri scepter’s gradually rising above his neck, awaiting the ideal moment to drop. He wonders if the end will come as an actual blade in his own body, or a gun muzzle pressed to his temple or a long fall from the top of a towering building to the street far, far below. He prefers the last one most, if he has any choice. It’s the only option in which Phil materializes again, walking up behind him with steady, confident steps, grasping his forearms. Pressing dark pink lips to the rim of his ear and saying only words of love and assurance, and not a strangled cry of pain.

It’ll be nice to see Phil again then. Maybe then, maybe, if he has any ounce of fortune left, Phil will stay for good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The clip of the scene can be viewed [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF2BjlRwc8E).


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Ritornare](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaTd96qdsaI): to return, come/go back; recur.

Clint is so, so, _so_ glad that Phil suggested a vacation here in Bora Bora. The island, over a hundred and forty miles northwest of Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia, surrounded by a lagoon and a barrier reef, is enchanting. From his vantage on the halcyon, white-sand beach, he can see some of the palm tree-bestrewn motu - “It means a reef islet with vegetation, Clint.” - that ring the island like a necklace. The waves of the ocean just a few dozen feet away from them are emerald and so crystal clear in the sunlight that when he’d snorkeled with Phil a few days ago in the Coral Garden, the natural underwater park southeast of the island, he’d been mesmerized by the flourishing wildlife, by the colorful butterfly fishes darting in and out of the compact colonies of coral, the Picasso trigger fish, the tang, the wrasse, and the leopard moray eels with their vivid stripes.

Seeing Phil in those form-fitting, three-inch long swimming briefs and flippers, however, won the trophy for Best Vision of the Day hands down.

Yesterday, Phil chose to wear looser, longer swimming trunks when they went to feed the wild sting rays off the Point Matira in the afternoon. Phil still won the trophy for Best Vision of the Day, although the spectacle of ten sting rays impatiently swimming around and climbing up Phil’s (adorably) gangling legs competed nobly for it. None of them would leave Phil alone until he cuddled several of them.

Even sting rays can’t resist his husband. Which he can totally understand. Phil is the hottest, sexiest man on this side of the planet, after all. And probably on the other side too. Most likely. A hundred percent definitely.

“They wanted to eat me,” Phil mutters, lying on his back on the purple-and-gold, checkered blanket they’d brought along with them to the beach for an afternoon of lazing together in the sun. (And working on their sexy tans, strips of skimpy swimming trunk paleness, notwithstanding.)

“ _No_ , they didn’t! They wanted to be your _friend_ ,” Clint says, rolling his eyes and smiling anyway. He huffs and tucks his head under Phil’s chin and feels the stable pulse in Phil’s long neck against his cheek. “How many times have I told you that, honey? A million! A _billion_!”

He can tell Phil is trying not to smile. Phil scratches at his scalp above the nape of his neck, and he purrs at the assuaging motion. (What, he _purrs_ , he can do that if he wants to, so there.)

“One of them nearly took off my fingers,” Phil mutters, grouchier still, and Clint smiles wider and nips the skin on his husband’s left collarbone.

“It did not.”

“It did so.”

“Sting rays don’t have teeth.”

“That one did. I felt its canines.” Phil’s eyes are shut, his lips quirked up in that oh-so-charming way. “It must have been a vampire sting ray.”

Clint’s shoulders quaver with mirth under Phil’s left arm.

“Does that mean you’re gonna start turning into a sting ray with the full moon from now on?”

Now he can tell Phil’s brows are furrowed as Phil considers this, lips still quirked up.

“ _Mm_ , that would be the case … if I’d been bitten by a _were-sting ray_. But a _vampire_ sting-ray would probably mean I will just become entranced by the sea, and be utterly infatuated with blond, blue-eyed, ravishing archers whom I’ll satisfy every night with my, _ahem_ , long and generous tail.”

Clint laughs sprightly with his eyes closed at that, rolling onto his back on the blanket, feeling the tropical sunshine beaming down upon him and Phil. He can feel Phil’s chest shaking with soundless laughter against his ribs.

“Did you - did you just compare your _dick_ to a _sting ray_ _’s_ _tail_?” he gasps, rolling back onto his flank and laying his head on Phil’s shoulder so he can see Phil’s face. Phil is poker-faced, but his eyes are open and warm, watching him with unbridled tenderness.

“Well, if you want me to be _realistic_ , I _could_ follow you around and then _bite_ you so I can insert my _clasper_ into your _cloaca_ , and then transfer my sperm into your _oviduct_.”

Clint stares at his husband, then says with a deadpan expression, “Wow. That was so damn sexy. That was like, the sexiest story of sex I have ever heard in my whole life. I am so turned on I can drill coral reef.”

Phil finally laughs aloud, and it sets him off all over again, making him roll onto Phil’s lithe, unscarred body, making him scratch and tickle Phil’s sides so Phil will laugh out loud longer. Phil has surprisingly ticklish sides, which works out _great_ for him. He loves hearing Phil laugh aloud. He can’t get enough of it. He wishes he could bottle it up so he has it with him, no matter he goes.

That’s just a silly idea that’ll stay as one, naturally. He can get Phil’s laughter any time he wants. Phil will never leave his side.

A century later, with one arm around Phil’s midriff, Clint murmurs against the warm, smooth skin of Phil’s shoulder, “I just wish … I wish Nat would get off my back, you know?”

Phil is scratching at his scalp again, playing with tufts of his hair. Their legs are entwined, his left leg between Phil’s, his right leg propping up Phil’s left.

“Hmm, what happened now?” Phil asks, untroubled.

“She just …” Clint frowns, pursing his lips for a second. “She keeps asking questions I don’t like. Don’t wanna answer. She tries to corner me and make me talk. Sometimes Tony does it too. He can be so, _ugh_ , stubborn. Like a rabid Corgi.” He wriggles closer to Phil. “Sometimes, I feel like the others are watching me too. Like they’re _scared_ of me. Maybe.”

“What do they ask you about?”

“They …” His frown deepens as he thinks about it. Weird. He … can’t remember what they ask him about, or why. He just knows he doesn’t like it. That he wants them to stop.

As if Phil can read his mind, Phil asks instead, “Why do you not like them asking you questions?”

Clint gets up on one elbow to gaze down at Phil. Phil gazes back, his lips quirking again when Clint rubs them with his fingertips. Phil’s eyes gleam in the sunshine. Phil’s skin is tawny and healthy and unscathed. Phil looks like how he feels with every fiber of his damn being around Phil.

“Because I’m … I’m happy here. With you. For the first time in my life, I’m _happy_ ,” Clint whispers, his eyes half-lidded, tracing Phil’s supple lower lip with the pad of his left forefinger. “Why don’t they get that?”

“Does it matter what they think, Clint?”

He watches Phil planting slow kisses on his fingers. Bites his lower lip when Phil sucks his forefinger and third finger into a hot, wet mouth, when Phil’s tongue swirls around them.

“No … no. Not if it doesn’t matter to you.”

His fingers pop out of Phil’s mouth with an obscene noise. Phil stares at him with those gleaming, warm eyes, and he feels like he’s all there is in Phil’s universe, like he’s already being consumed from the inside out when Phil has barely begun to touch him.

“You’re what matters to me. You know that, don’t you?”

Phil is grazing his side, his lower back with one hand. He arches into it, knowing Phil relishes the swell and stretch of his muscles under his palm, knowing he belongs to Phil. Knowing that _Phil_ knows that. He leans down at the same time Phil rises up into an open-mouthed, electrifying kiss, and he straddles Phil’s waist with one leg on either side, never once parting from Phil’s lips, kissing and kissing those luscious, dark pink lips until he feels like he’s fiery and delirious with fever and panting for air.

“Yes,” he breathes into Phil’s mouth between kisses. “Yes. Yes.”

Phil is gazing at him once more when he’s forced to break away for air, when he presses their foreheads together. He sighs as Phil’s large, strong hands leave an echo of heat down the skin of his back, laying claim to his flesh and bones, his soul.

He’d give Phil eternity, if he’d possessed it, if he could. Give Phil eternal life in an eternal universe where there’s no death, no suffering, no gods. If he could, he would. He would.

“Phil?”

“Hmm?”

He angles his head for another kiss, a slow and pliable one.

“Phil,” he murmurs against Phil’s lips. “Why aren’t you the Avengers’ handler? Why Jasper?”

He feels those large, strong hands at his shoulders, pushing him up just far enough that the tips of their noses are touching, that Phil can look him in the eye. There’s a twinkle of amusement in Phil’s crinkled eyes.

“Well, that’s a funny question.”

“Why?”

“I’m just an actuary in the financial department. Remember?” Phil says, and Clint blinks. And blinks again.

Phil, an … actuary? What _is_ that? Phil isn’t an _actuary_ , whatever the heck that is, Phil’s one of the highest-ranking spies in SHIELD and his SHIELD handler as well as Natasha’s and he’d _know_ that, being Phil’s _husband_ and all -

“An actuary? You know, the guy who evaluates and advises on financial risks?” Phil is outright smiling in amusement now, as if Clint’s confusion is _cute_ , is anticipated. “The guy who has the boring job of dealing with pensions, insurance and healthcare for our illustrious agency?”

Clint blinks another time. All of a sudden, he is hyper-aware of everything around him, of the pure white sand of the peculiarly deserted beach, of the cooling breeze that’s never meager or biting, of the near blinding saturation of the purple-and-gold squares of their blanket. He and Phil aren’t sweating at all despite being under the sun for … ages now. There’s no one else around except them and they have this entire haven, this heaven to themselves and Phil - the skin of Phil’s chest is smooth under the curls dusting it. Phil’s lungs billow with air. Phil’s heart constantly speaks to him.

Everything is so damn perfect, it’s almost too good to be true.

Clint sits up haltingly. He still has one hand on Phil’s rising and falling chest. Phil has placed one hand over his, holding it there, right there over that big, beating heart. Phil’s expression is serene like it’s always been, like it’s always been that way and nothing else. He studies every inch of Phil’s handsome face, every contour, every channel, every boundary that makes it Phil’s, and only Phil’s. He traces the crow’s feet, the _laugh lines_ around Phil’s beautiful blue eyes. He taps at Phil’s thick eyelashes as Phil shuts his eyes. He traces the length of Phil’s patrician nose, traces Phil’s soft lips again.

Phil is perfect. So damn perfect. It’s almost too good to be true that Phil is his.

And it is.

Isn’t it?

He swallows hard, even as he smiles down at Phil (and his smile isn’t trembling, it isn’t).

Oh.

 _Oh_ , he’s … he’s woken up. He went to sleep because Phil was waiting for him and then he woke up and now he’s here where he should be, with Phil. Phil is back and alive (again, _again_ ) and they have all the time in the world, all the time. Until he has to leave again.

He places his hand against the side of Phil’s neck, against the stable pulse there.

Don’t think about _him_. Don’t think about _that_. Don’t think about any of it, any of _them._

Don’t.

 _Ssshh_.

“Do I have to explain what I do for a living, again?” Phil grumbles, eyes crinkled all the more.

Before Clint can reply, he hears the distant peal of thunder. He swivels his head to gaze at the horizon, at the dark gray, baleful clouds that have amassed there. The waters of the ocean appear different there, shifted from clear emerald to an eerie, glowing blue. It’s … freezing over. A blanket of ice, of snow is creeping towards the beach an inch at a time, and he can already feel it pinching at his feet, seeking a way to pierce his skin, to slither into the places inside that Phil’s claimed and erase it all and replace it with numbness and nothingness.

If that blanket of snow reaches them, he won’t be able to see Phil anymore. He’ll be lost in it.

He’ll be in limbo, forever.

 _You don’t come back from there, love_ , a voice says from long ago, in a cozy, terraced house in a cold, damp country. _You don’t come back from there the person you were, ever again_.

“Clint?”

He turns back to look at Phil and all of a sudden, it’s hot and the French Polynesian sun is beaming down upon them and a cooling breeze that’s never meager or biting is wafting over them. The purple-and-gold squares of their blanket look just right. A family of four have camped out farther down the beach, and another couple farther down from the family. Droplets of sweat are dotting Phil’s high forehead.

It’s just another day on the beach at Bora Bora.

“Hey. Hey, I’m here, Clint,” Phil says, touching his face. “I’m here, sweetheart.”

 _No_ , a voice whispers, from across vast, snow-blanketed plains, _no, you aren_ _’t_. _Not anymore_.

But what Clint says is, “Yeah. You are. You are,” blinking rapidly.

What Clint does is turn his back against the horizon, against the dark gray, baleful clouds and snow and ice that aren’t there. They’re not there, if he doesn’t think about them. Don’t think about them.

Don’t think about _any_ of them.

Ssshh, now.

 _Ssshh_.

Clint swallows hard, even as he smiles down at Phil, at his husband of seven years and counting, his competent and handsome and _perfect_ actuary of a husband who stops SHIELD from drowning in financial paperwork.

“Let’s go back to our hotel room,” he rasps, stroking Phil’s cock over skimpy, black swimming trunks. “I want you to fuck me through the floor, babe.”

“Yes,” Phil says, rough with lust. “Yes. Yes.”

And all of a sudden, they’re naked on the bed of their hotel room, and Clint is urging Phil to pounce on him and shove that hard and hot and long cock into him already, to seize his swollen cock in hand and stroke it until he’s gasping and writhing, yeah, _just like that, yeah_. Phil is laving kisses all over his arched neck, kissing down his arched body, nibbling at his rippling abdomen. He lets out a loud moan when Phil licks and sucks the head of his cock and gasps, “Yeah, _yeah_ , god, yeah.”

He arches and _arches_ as Phil’s head bobs up and down fast, as Phil’s cheeks hollow and Phil swallows him down to the hilt. He groans when Phil sucks on his balls, cries out and shudders when Phil licks his perineum, licks at his hungry hole and pushes in two fingers at once, in and out. He clutches at Phil’s hair and Phil smiles against the sensitive skin of his inner thigh and oh, _oh_ , Phil ’s pressing that spot in him right there, _right there_ , but it isn’t enough, he needs Phil inside him _right now_ -

“After I fuck you,” Phil says, and every swear word that comes out of Phil’s mouth sounds a hundred times filthier and _sexier_ , “after I fuck you and open you up nice till you scream and _cry_ , I want to eat your gorgeous ass, make you sit on my face and _lick_ you and _my come_ coming out of you -”

“Oh my god,” Clint whispers, licking his lips and spreading his thighs wide while Phil settles between them, staring at Phil’s hard, hot, long and perfect _cock_ lining up with his hole. “I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die -”

Phil thrusts in a little at a time, in and in and _in_ , until he’s seated deep inside Clint’s ass, all the way in. Clint can see Phil’s face above his, see every inch of Phil’s handsome face, every contour, every channel, every boundary that makes it his, and only his. _He_ put the laugh lines around Phil’s beautiful blue eyes. _He_ is the one who has the honor of tapping at Phil’s thick eyelashes as Phil shuts his eyes. _He_ is the one who gets to kiss the length of Phil’s patrician nose, kiss Phil’s soft lips again and again.

Phil is perfect. So damn perfect. And here and now, Phil is his, and that is all he needs to know and remember.

He shouts and rakes his fingers down Phil’s back as Phil thrusts in and out of him at a breakneck pace. It burns, it burns _so good_ and Phil is filling him up so sweetly and _completely_ that he can die right here and now.

“Make me forget,” he whispers into Phil’s ear, his eyes squeezed shut. “Make me forget everything. Please.”

“Yes,” Phil whispers back, hoarse with love and no pain, no suffering at all. “Yes, Clint. Yes.”

And when Clint comes, bowing up against Phil’s heaving chest and sobbing Phil’s name, it’s hot outside. The French Polynesian sun is beaming down upon them through their open hotel room windows. A cooling breeze that’s never meager or biting blows over their flushed faces while laughing children race across a pure white-sand beach and into emerald, crystal clear waters with no gloomy clouds or ice in sight, none at all.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's right, folks, the longest chapter of the story so far, and it's an action-packed, team-centric, feels-crammed one too!
> 
> Soundtrack recommendation: [The Dark Knight OST - Agent of Chaos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZTsgfjOHnE)

When the beginning of the end does come, it still comes as a surprise to Clint, in the form of a succinct, lowly uttered command.

“Hawkeye. You’re staying.”

The team is on the helipad of the Tower, armed and ready to board the quinjet to fly straight to the fringe of downtown Manhattan where an army of silver-skinned, humanoid robots are rampaging the streets and demolishing everything in their path. They’re already smashed their way through three buildings, flattened numerous vehicles and brought traffic in the area to a halt and sent throngs of evacuating people screaming and running for their lives. It’s a clusterfuck of an escalating situation since the robots are also capable of short-distance flight and are impervious to regular bullets. The police who’d had the misfortune of encountering the robots first had to learn that the really hard way.

These homicidal, fuckwad robots from who-the-hell-knows-where are wrecking the city and _killing_ people, and Steve wants him to _stay_?

He stares with harsh eyes at Steve who stares back with steely ones through the cowl, immalleable as the vibranium of the shield Steve has strapped to a brawny forearm. Steve is several inches taller than he is, and he hates that he has to tilt his head back a bit to look Steve in the eye, that he has to bare his throat like a submissive dog when what he really feels like is tearing out someone else’s throat with his teeth.

“Why?” he grits out. His gloved left hand is taut around his bow, vibrating with a restless, dark energy.

“You are not required on this mission,” Steve says, unblinking, expansive shoulders squared and head held high as befitting a team leader and captain.

Clint wonders how deep he has to burrow his teeth into Steve’s neck before he can rip out the carotid artery there.

“That’s - Did we see the same footage of the goddamn _carnage_ going on right now?!” He bares his teeth and flings his jacket-covered arms wide in vexation. “The _whole team_ _’s_ gotta be out there! You can’t just _bench_ me and not give me a _reason_!”

In the distance, there is a subdued boom of an explosion. Clint doesn’t look away from Steve.

Tony, who’s in his Iron Man suit with his helmet gripped with both hands and standing next to Steve, won’t look him in the eye. Bruce and Thor are already on the quinjet, unaware of the fight flaring on their home turf. Natasha is standing on the lowered ramp of the quinjet, observing them with narrowed, wary eyes that tell Clint that she had no clue about Steve intending to pull this bullshit on him.

“You’re staying,” Steve repeats. His voice, too, is edged with steel now. “That’s an _order_.”

Clint grinds his teeth. A muscle twitches in his lower jaw as he glares at Steve, at _Captain fucking America_. So the Captain wants to play it this way? Wants to treat him like a soldier and nothing more?

Yeah, that’s nothing new to him. But the one person he’s - _he_ _’d_ ever willingly recognized as his superior isn’t Captain America. There will never be anyone else he will acknowledge in that fashion.

There will never be anyone else he will willingly call sir ever again.

“With all due respect, _Captain_ , this is _bullshit_ ,” he snarls, his eyes shards of ice, his gloved hands clenched into quavering fists at his sides. He feels like he can break his bow in two with just his hand. “This is a _mistake_.”

Neither he or Captain America back down, holding eye contact that ignites the very air between them with a tension threatening to detonate like a fatal bomb. From the corner of his eyes, he sees Tony glance at their team leader, hears nothing from Tony’s mouth. Tony knew. Tony - _Iron Man_ knew what Captain America was going to do. They probably decided it together, behind his back, springing it on him like this so he wouldn’t have time to -

“No. It isn’t, Clint,” Captain America replies, and the steel of his eyes have softened into something almost … _kind_. Something like _sympathy_ , something that Clint just doesn’t _get_. “It’s necessary.”

The Captain doesn’t wait for his response and pivots around and marches towards the quinjet without a single glance back. When he glares at Tony, he finds Tony looking back at him for a moment as Tony also heads towards the quinjet, with an expression that seems to say, _I_ _’m sorry, I am_.

Clint doesn’t fucking care about apologies. He wants an _explanation_ for this bullshit, and they don’t have the decency of even _giving_ him one. Isn’t he an _Avenger_ too? Isn’t it his _job_ to be out there with them too, fighting the good fight and _saving lives_?

What good is he if he stays behind and does nothing?

He’s nothing, then. _Nothing_.

He sees Natasha looking at Captain America as the Captain and Iron Man reach the ramp. The Captain merely shakes his head once and strides on into the quinjet, followed by Iron Man who’s donned his helmet. He stares at her while she stares back, her big green eyes wide and her deceptively angelic, youthful face outwardly blank. He know it’s anything but, he knows there are a thousand thoughts, a thousand possible answers flashing through her honed mind right now to the question plastered across his face.

 _It_ _’s them or us,_ he’d once asked her before, long ago, when they were about to leap from a plane into hostile Latverian territory in the duskiness of night, _it_ _’s them or us, right_?

For a while, a long while, the rest of the universe dwindles away until there is only him and Natasha, their gazes weaved, the space between them easily crossed with footsteps. He waits for her to walk down the ramp, to come to him and stand by him, like she always has. He waits for the only person left who’s seen so much of who he really is, and hasn’t left him yet.

The spell between them fractures when she turns her head to glance inside the quinjet, as if her name had been called. When she looks at him again, when he sees the same expression that had been on Iron Man’s face flicker across hers, he feels something in the left side of his chest cleave to slivers. When she turns away and walks up the rising ramp, vanishing from view, the muscles in his lower jaw twitch for a different reason. He blinks hard, and again as the quinjet ascends into the air and zooms away without him, the space between them impassable.

Yeah, well. Nothing new there either.

He’s the fucking idiot for even _thinking_ things will turn out different when the past has proven otherwise. Didn’t that guy with the wacky, white hair, that theoretical physicist or something, say that you must be _insane_ to do the same thing again and again and expect different results?

Guess that answers another question for him.

He staggers back into the Tower, unaware of his shaking hands dropping his bow onto a carpeted floor, of his equally shaky breaths quickening in his lungs as that restless, dark energy in his hands roves up his arms and his neck and into his throbbing head. He feels like something is taking over his mind again, like he’s drowning in blue and ice but all he sees are dark spots in the periphery of his blurry vision. He wants to hurl something as hard as he can at the wall. Slam it over and over into the wall until it splinters into irreparable pieces (just like him, _just like him_ ). He wants to take a knife and hack and slice everything he can get his hands on to ravaged shreds, he wants to, _he wants to_ -

With deliberate steps, he walks towards the nearest chair in sight - a four-legged, hardwood meeting chair with armrests at an oblong table of seven other similar chairs - and picks it up with both hands. He feels a primal stab of satisfaction as he batters the chair against the nearest wall, again and again and again and _again_. It shatters into jagged pieces on the fifth blow, leaving two long remnants of wood that were once chair legs in his still shaking hands. He drops them. Seizes another chair and batters it against the wall too, propelling all his strength into each blow, roaring wordlessly.

His vision clears after that. He’s hyper-aware of everything around him, of the craters in the once-spotless, beige wall, of the wreckage of wood and torn cushions at his feet, of the sweat drops stippling his forehead, his hands no longer shaking, his breaths long and deep and slowing, his eyes staring down at his undamaged bow on the floor.

Okay.

He’s okay.

He can still reach the other Avengers in time. Traffic will hinder him, yeah, but he can still reach them in time if he doesn’t give a fuck about red lights, about stopping for anyone or anything.

He still has the Pale Male in the basement garage.

He grabs his bow and sprints to the elevator. Slams the button for the basement garage level after getting in. He expects JARVIS to say something, to stop him, but the elevator goes all the way down and opens up to reveal the two neat rows of vehicles owned by Tony Stark (and the other Avengers) in an elongated, brightly-lit and tiled garage. About six cars down on the left, next to Captain America’s Harley Davidson motorcycle, is the tremendous yet streamlined, armored, black-and-red, three-seater vehicle Stark had designed in the aftermath of the Battle of New York.

 _It'_ _s like a hawk, see_ , Stark had said to them after unveiling it for the first time in the garage so many months ago. _A red-tailed hawk, all blocky and broad, but! It_ _s tameable even for the most antediluvian among us - yes, I’m talking about you, Steve - and it’s long-lived and damage-resistant, it’s excellent at conserving energy and defending its surrounding territory with its repulsor blasters, and it’s_ fast _when you need it to be. I want to call it[Pale Male](http://www.palemale.com/). You know, after our very own red-tailed hawk in Central Park? You know what I_ _’m talking about, right, Barton? And yes, you can give it a test run, put your hand down, it was made with you in mind anyway_.

The driver’s door opens up smoothly to the side for Clint. He throws himself onto the sleek, black, leather-bound seat and his bow and quiver onto the passenger’s seat next to him as the door shuts automatically. The Pale Male can only be switched on via biometrics keyed specifically to the Avengers, including him, and he presses one hand to the luminescent panel to the right of the steering wheel to be scanned.

“Clint Barton, codenamed Hawkeye,” he says for the voice scanner, his other hand already gripping the steering wheel. If his authorization’s already been revoked, he’ll carve out as many of the panels as he has to with his knife and fucking _hot-wire_ this thing so help him god -

The Pale Male’s engines and internal systems come online with an admirable rumble and JARVIS stating, “Good afternoon, Agent Barton, I am at your service.”

Clint doesn’t look at himself in the rear view mirror as he accelerates the Pale Male out of its parking space and speeds towards the lowered and locked gate on the other side of the garage that will take him out the back of the Tower. He doesn’t see what Captain America and Iron Man and the others have seen: The shadowed bags under his bloodshot eyes, the perturbing pallor of his face, the unhealthy protrusion of his cheek bones, his parched lips. The way his long jacket hangs on him instead of molding to his body. The way his hands tremor unceasingly, as if his body is craving for another hit of chemical-influenced euphoria.

All he sees is the dark gray gate that hasn’t opened yet. All he sees is Natasha - no, _Black Widow_ turning away from him and not once looking back at him.

He halts the Pale Male about sixty feet away from the gate, glaring at it. He knows it’s been augmented with some damn near indestructible alloys but, you know what?

He doesn’t give a fuck.

“You open that gate right now, JARVIS,” he says, so very calmly and clearly, “or I swear I’ll smash my way through and _I don_ _’t care what happens_.”

For five seconds that feel like five thousand years, nothing occurs. JARVIS says nothing. Clint’s about to stamp down on the accelerator when the gate whirs to life and lifts up as smoothly as the Pale Male’s door had opened. Clint races out onto the street before the gate has fully lifted, scarcely clearing the bar of the gate. He says nothing himself, having assumed JARVIS is no longer present, oblivious to the fact that when JARVIS had spoken to him earlier, it had been from the Pale Male’s speakers.

Clint is just as oblivious to the conversation JARVIS is having with his creator at this moment, who’s in the air and busy firing both repulsors at a few particularly stubborn, homicidal robots that just won’t stay down:

“Sir,” JARVIS says through the internal speakers in Iron Man’s helmet.

Tony is flitting his gaze across multiple transparent projected screens as he asks, “You handling the quinjet okay on your own, J-man?”

“Yes, Sir. The quinjet is maintaining its altitude and is still out of range of the invaders. Judging from the current camera feeds, it appears the Hulk is having a grand time stomping said invaders with his feet while Thor is also enjoying himself hammering said invaders with Mjolnir.”

Tony chuckles as he glances at his own live feeds and confirms what JARVIS had reported.

“Yeah, they sure are. You see Steve and Natasha?”

“Yes, Sir, Black Widow has just incapacitated another two invaders three blocks south. Captain Rogers is currently contending with five of the invaders two blocks to the east but is holding his position.” JARVIS pauses, then says with what almost sounds like trepidation, “Sir, I must inform you, Agent Barton is en route to the scene in the Pale Male.”

Tony lets out a huff of air through pouted lips.

“Yeah. Yeah, Steve and I figured he would be.”

“As armored as the Pale Male is, I could not stop him from leaving without the high risk of him harming himself in the process. He was willing to crash the vehicle through the adamantium-reinforced gate if I did not open it.”

“It was a good call, okay, JARVIS? It’s not the car or the gate I’m worried about. Better he took the Pale Male than any of the others cars or bikes, too. At least he’s _protected_ in it,” Tony replies, frowning as he blasts yet more robots swarming on the street below him. “Maintain control of the Pale Male and keep an eye on him at all times, all right? Flip every traffic light on his way if you have to and if you even _think_ that he’s going to black out -”

“I will immediately implement the same protocols as for the quinjet. One of my prime directives as programmed by you _is_ to uphold the safety of you and your loved ones.”

“Good boy. I love ya, you know that?”

“I live only to serve you, Sir,” JARVIS says, almost as if with genuine affection. (For Tony, it very much is.)

“Heads up, Cap,” Tony says to Steve via their private comm line seconds later. “Hawkeye is loose and heading straight for us.”

Which is why Clint, with an earpiece on and plugged into the team’s main comm line, hears Captain America hail him first.

“Hawkeye, you were ordered to stay behind!”

Clint is also oblivious to his highly coincidental streak of good luck at hitting green lights all the way down, at the other vehicles on the road being kept in their lanes and out of his course due to this. Months from now, he’ll be indebted to JARVIS for sparing him from potentially hurting (and killing, killing) more innocent people, and to Steve for knowing when to cradle an iron fist with a velvet glove and when not to.

For now, though, Clint’s just pissed off as hell at Captain America for dismissing him from an Avenger job that has most _certainly_ become one massive clusterfuck of a mess.

“ _Fuck you_ ,” he growls, perhaps as much to Captain America as to the silver-skinned killer robot into which he rams the armored prow of the Pale Male. The robot rips open at the abdomen with a ghoulish shriek, its dismantled upper body sailing over the Pale Male’s roof and beyond, its lower body crushed beneath the Pale Male’s formidable wheels.

“ _Hawkeye_!”

“You guys are getting fucking _creamed_ out here!”

He ignores Captain America’s incensed response to that and plows the Pale Male into several more robots, his teeth bared in a parody of a grin. It feels pretty damn _good_ to mow these fuckers down. This is what he does best, taking down the enemy, never missing his target, never giving up until the job’s done, until, unless -

 _Barton, get out of there, now_.

He blinks. Blinks again, and he’s screeched to a halt outside a commercial building, an evacuated one from the looks of the smashed windows and glass walls and absence of people. Was that - was that _Coulson_ on the comms? Is he _hearing things_ , or is -

The Pale Male shudders as yet another killer robot launches itself onto the armored hood, releasing that ghoulish shriek from a lipless, rectangular mouth under three glowing eyes. A powerful repulsor blast from a gun popping out of the Pale Male’s roof punches its face and sends it bouncing out of view. Three more robots receive similarly powerful blasts to their torsos as they approach the Pale Male, hurtling away with those awful shrieks.

Clint shoves the heels of his hands against his squeezed shut eyes.

No, fuck, _fuck_ , of course he didn’t hear Coulson on the comms. Coulson’s dead. _Coulson_ _’s dead_ but his teammates still need him, they still -

He shoves open the driver’s door with his quiver and bow on him and vaults out of the Pale Male even as it deploys more repulsor blasters to defend itself against another onslaught of killer robots. He dashes into the building - a fifty-story one, at an estimating glance up its exterior - and across a wrecked lobby and goes straight to the stairwell, slamming through its unlocked, wooden door to dash up the dozens of staircases to the rooftop, taking two steps at a time. The stairwell is built with a now devastated glass facade from the ground floor to the top, and on level sixteen, Clint is able to see the Black Widow on the ground, feuding with four robots with what seems to be a portable repulsor gun. It doesn’t disintegrate after the first shot, which means Stark must have improved its design and durability since the first one.

As if summoned, Clint hears Iron Man ask through his earpiece, “Hawkeye? Where are you?”

He doesn’t reply. He’s shot an adamantium-tipped arrow at one of the eyes of the robot behind the Black Widow before she fires her next round. Straight and true, the arrow pierces through the eye and lodges itself inside the shrieking, foundering robot’s head. He sees the Black Widow glance up in his direction, but he doesn’t linger at the broken glass wall and resumes his sprint up the staircases to the rooftop.

At level thirty-five, he sees Iron Man swoop past, being chased by two robots who are screeching some gibberish crap at a torturous pitch and volume. He yanks out an explosive arrow from his quiver.

Nock, pull, _release_.

The arrow strikes one of the robots dead on, blasting it to scrap that plunges to the street below. The other robot is gaining on Iron Man, and its mouth is _glowing_ and it looks like it’s about to _fire_ something at Iron Man’s back -

Nock, pull, _release_!

Another explosive arrow cripples that robot, and it screams all the way down to the ground until it smashes into fiery pieces, and before that happens Clint is already sprinting up again, up and up and _up_ until he slams his way through the roof access door and onto open space. His lungs are broiling in his chest as he tries to regain his breath. Those black spots are back in the periphery of his vision again, more and more of them. The whole fucking world is spinning round and round, making him dizzy and nauseated. He lurches against the ledge of the rooftop, catching himself with his right hand on the painted cement. He feels like throwing up, like falling to his knees and lying down and never getting up again but he can’t, _he can_ _’t_. His team still needs him. They _need_ him -

He sucks in deep gusts of breath. Shuts his eyes. Opens them again, and nocks another arrow on his bow.

He’s okay. He can do this. _He_ _’s okay._

He fires arrow after arrow, taking down every robot foolish enough to fly within his range, taking down three surrounding the Black Widow who’s bounded onto a car and is still firing her weapon with determination. He sees Captain America’s shield gleam in the afternoon sunlight as it plows through nine robots in one arc through the air before returning to its master. He shoots down another flying robot on Iron Man’s tail. He hears the Hulk bellow from blocks away. He hears thunder, deafening and alarming, as Thor invokes lightning farther downtown to exterminate the swarms of robots there.

And then, he hears someone walking up behind him with steady, confident steps.

He feels two large, strong hands grasping his forearms. He feels dark pink lips pressing themselves to the rim of his ear, murmuring words of love and assurance.

“Phil?” Clint whispers, wide eyes staring sightlessly ahead. He can’t turn his head around to look. He can’t, he doesn’t want to, _he can_ _’t_ because what if _Phil_ _isn_ _’t there_?

 _I'm here_ , a sublime voice, the most sublime voice he’s ever heard says, _I'll be here when you wake up. Like I always am_.

Clint looks down at the street far, far below. He steps onto the ledge, the toes of his boots jutting out beyond the edge.

 _Now_ , Phil says, _fly_.

Clint steps forward into thin, cold air. He whirls around and stares at the pellucid, blue sky. He spreads his arms.

The whole world stops spinning. The whole world goes dark and soundless.

Then, after a millennia, he opens his eyes and he sees the street rushing up to meet him. He feels an arctic gale raking his face, his hair. He hears a cacophony of yelling voices in his left ear -

“Jesus fucking christ, Clint -”

“ _Chort_ _poberi_ -”

“Thor! _Catch him_! _NOW_!”

And then, something swift and giant and _solid_ collides with him, like a sledgehammer to his entire body at once. He cries out from the pain and brunt of the impact, precious breath forced out of his lungs and tears forced out of his eyes. He’s being blinded by a mane of gold. He’s being crushed by a muscled, unbreakable arm and he can’t breathe, he can’t see, he hurts and he’s falling, _he'_ _s falling and he’s going to_ -

The whole world goes dark and soundless again, for an instant.

Then he lands, and it is with such force that the asphalt-coated ground cracks in a rippling circle beneath two black, armored boots, that shards of asphalt fly up into the air around him while the air crackles with frightening electricity. He’s not dead, he’s not dead, _he_ _’s not dead_ but he still can’t see, can’t breathe and he has to _get free now_ , now, now, _now_ before they find him and catch him and try to make him _talk_ and stop him from going back to Coulson, to _Phil_.

He howls as he bashes his fists on his captor, on his captor’s vulnerable face and neck. It feels like he’s punching a brick wall but he can’t stop or they’re going to take him down and there’ll be no one to defend Phil, _to keep him alive_ -

“Please, Hawkeye. You are hurting yourself,” a resonant, godlike voice says, but he doesn’t hear it, he’s being maneuvered onto his belly on the ground with his arms crossed behind him and he has to fight back, he has to, _he has to_ , fuck, _fuck_!

He howls again and kicks both legs up into the kidneys of his captor who’s straddling his hips now. He’s dropped veteran SHIELD agents three times his size with that move, but this guy doesn’t so much as budge or even grunt. He kicks again, and again, thrashing as much as he can in the iron grip around his forearms.

The iron grip tightens.

“Please, my friend, stop this.”

When he kicks another time, something in his arms give way. It hurts like _hell_ and he lets out a strangled cry into the coarse ground against his face. No, no, oh god no, if he ’s injured his arms and he can’t use his bow anymore, he’s nothing, he’s nothing, _nothing_ -

“Thor! Is he okay?” he hears a man ask from far away.

“I do not know what is wrong with him, Tony. He will not listen to me and he fights me,” his captor replies, loosening the grip on his arms. It’s still too tight for him to free himself, but he tries, he _tries_ anyway and then he hears a woman’s dulcet voice say quietly, too quietly, “Thor. Let him go. Now.”

The iron grip around his forearms disappears.

Even as he whimpers from the ache radiating from his forearms, he scurries away on all fours from his captor, from the unknown others as fast as he can, scraping his fingers on the asphalt, until he bumps hard into a wall. He immediately turns his back to it, hyperventilating, curling up into a ball with his feet tucked close to him, with the tactical knife sheathed in his left boot close to hand.

He can see them all now, standing just out of his attack range. One guy is in some red-and-yellow, hi-tech robotic suit, his faceplate raised to reveal an attractive, brown-eyed face with a Balbo and Van Dyke mash of facial hairstyles. The sole woman of the group is beautiful and green-eyed with flaming, red hair, attired in a black catsuit and armed with a collection of handheld weapons at her belt. There’s another guy, a brawny, broad-shouldered man in a red, blue and white uniform and cowl, running up to them from behind with a shield strapped to his arm. And the third guy, the one who’d hurt him, _held him down_ , is approaching him slowly with those enormous shackles for hands pressed to an expansive, armored chest.

“Shield brother,” the blond man says, gazing at him with blue, sagacious, _kind_ eyes. “It is I, Thor. Do you not know me?”

Clint stares back with stark, wild eyes. No … no, he doesn’t know this guy. He doesn’t know any of them. Who the fuck are these people? Who _are_ they? And where’s Coulson, his handler who should be with him on his missions? Who should be there to guide him back to refuge? _Where_ _’s Phil_?

The man who claims to be called Thor is getting nearer to him. He waits, holding his breath and staring at Thor until Thor is almost an arm’s length away.

“Thor!” the woman shouts.

Her warning comes a split second before he whips out the knife from its sheath in his boot, slashing a wide arc through the air where Thor’s throat was in that split second. In the months to come, he’ll be stunned by the fact that he’d made a _god_ jump back from him in fear, but for now, he breathes hard while pointing the deadly blade of his knife at Thor, prepared to strike again. Thor retreats as slowly as he approached, hands raised, still gazing at him with such … _kindness_. Kindness he just doesn’t _get_ -

He cries out in dread and rears back and presses back against the wall behind him when he sees the gargantuan, muscle-bound, _green_ man looming into view in the background. This green guy’s larger than all of them, with fists the size of heavy boulders and … tattered, _purple_ pants?

“Birdie?” the green giant says in a low, reverberant voice.

Clint gapes at the green giant frowning in what seems to be bafflement, at all of them. They stare back, some of them appearing bewildered, others appearing as impassive as stone. His trembling left hand is still gripping his knife and brandishing it, ready to hack any of them if they dare approach him again, if they _dare_. He stares the longest at the woman, at her deceptively angelic, youthful face. He thinks he’s seen her before today, perhaps in another lifetime, in a hundred other lifetimes when he had to bear a false name and a false passport and live in the skin of a false man to apprehend targets for SHIELD. He thinks she may be a SHIELD agent too, just like him.

He thinks that she may be a friend.

She steps forward until she is at the forefront of the group.

“Stay back,” she says quietly to the others, glancing back at them for just a second.

They obey her.

He stares into her eyes as she gracefully goes down on her knees in front of him, her hands raised palms outward in peace. She is fearless. She pays no heed to the knife in his hand. Her eyes remind him of lush forests abundant with vivid life, with loyalty and promise. Her eyes tell him that she will gladly be his good friend forever, if he only lets her in, if he only trusts her.

“Vy menya ne znayete, Clint?” she murmurs, gazing back at him, and he realizes that she is speaking Russian to him. That he understands her just fine. “Razve ty ne uznayesh' menya, moy staryy droog?”

 _Do you not know me, Clint_? _Do you not recognize me, my old friend_?

And then, _then_ he sees her standing beneath a lone lamp post on a grimy, deserted street, garbed in thick winter clothing as white as the falling snow. He know they are in Chelyabinsk, that he is there to seek her, to _save_ her. He’s smiling at her. The ends of her lips are quirked up, just like her future handler’s do when he tries not to smile.

She asks him, _kak vas zavut_?

 _Meenya zavut Clint_ , he replies, smiling wider, then switches to English. _What_ _’s_ your _name_?

Her lips, as vibrant red as her hair, quirk up even more. They part, and then, they utter a single word.

Clint blinks.

He blinks again.

“Natasha,” he rasps in the present, and the fog in his mind dissipates. The scales fall away from his eyes.

He remembers, all over again.

And with that, the restless, dark energy that’d been thrumming in him from the moment Captain America - _Steve_ ordered him to stay behind dies a rapid, imminent death in him. He shivers in its wake, as if all there is left in the void is ice, ice as far as he can see. He feels cold. So numb and cold, and his jacket is doing nothing to warm him up.

He sees rather than feel Natasha take his knife out of his trembling grasp. She gazes at him all the while, anchoring him to the present, to himself. To what remains of it. Of him.

“Tasha,” he whispers. He’s furious at his eyes for going hazy, for stinging now.

“O, moy ptichka,” she whispers back.

He can feel her still gazing at him as he says to her, to everyone, “I’m - I’m okay.”

It’s such a blatant lie that even the Hulk looks skeptical.

“Okay, Clint? _Okay_?” Tony says, his eyes wide and aghast, waving his hands around. “Clint, you fell off a _fifty-story building_ to what would have been one hell of a _gory_ demise if Thor hadn’t caught you in time. And speaking of Thor, you then tried to beat him up and _pulled a knife on him_ , and no, in no universe in existence is any of that the definition of _okay_.”

No one has anything else to say. Tony’s said enough.

Clint stares at Natasha, at her blurred form as Steve approaches them and stands behind her. He can feel Steve staring down at him, but he doesn’t look up. He doesn’t want to see the dismay, the _disappointment_ that must be in Steve’s eyes.

“Black Widow. Stay with him.”

Clint shuts his eyes as Steve and the other Avengers move away, resuming the final leg of their skirmish with the few remaining silver-skinned, killer robots. He feels Natasha’s hand on his left knee, feels her sitting next to him, watching him. But he also feels the guillotine blade already through his neck, already fallen the moment he embedded the IV needle of the PASIV into his arm for the first time since leaving Eames’ and Arthur’s terraced house in London. Fallen the moment he decided to infuse himself with Somnacin again and again, until … until.

He’s wrong, he thinks to himself later as the team boards the quinjet to head back to the Tower, he’s wrong about not being dead.

The Avengers will have to deal with the mayor, the City Council and the press again, and with SHIELD as well. There’ll be days and days of clean up, of official inquiries and complaints, press conferences and Q-and-As, TV interviews, all the same bullcrap they had to deal with after the Battle of New York. But he won’t be with them when all that goes down. He knows that for sure now.

With Natasha sitting beside him, he stares down at his broken bow on his lap all the way back to the Tower.

His hands won’t stop trembling. They won’t stop.

After the quinjet lands on the Tower’s helipad, he and Natasha are the first to disembark. Bruce is right behind them, tottering on his feet with a blanket around his hunched upper body. Natasha grabs Bruce’s right upper arm when Bruce lists to one side in exhaustion, and he mumbles his thanks to her, his lips curving up in a wry smile. Clint doesn’t look back as he strides ahead and into the Tower, his groggy brain a charitable entity in his skull for once, preventing him from thinking about anything much.

He ignores the wreckage of shattered chairs on the carpeted floor as he passes the oblong meeting table and its six remaining chairs. He slows his steps as Natasha and Bruce pass him on their way to the elevator at the end of the hallway. He glances at her and finds her glancing back at him as she supports Bruce with one of his arms around her shoulders. Her eyes seem to say, _we_ _’ll find a way, moy dobryy droog, we’ll make things right again_.

He wishes he had her conviction.

He wishes he had Coulson’s conviction.

He watches Natasha and Bruce walk on. He doesn’t realize that Steve and Tony are now behind him, until Steve says, “Clint, you need a medical checkup.”

He halts in his tracks, his back still facing them.

 _I don_ _’t need it. I’m okay_ , he wants to say. _I_ _’ll be okay._

His mouth is uncooperative. It’s too dry. It’s tired of lying.

“Hawkeye.” The steel is permeating Steve’s voice again, firmer than ever. “That was not a request.”

Clint turns around, slowly. Steve and Tony are standing side by side, like they usually do when they’re addressing a crowd, or when they have to accost a single member of the team for a difficult discussion. Steve stands unblinking, his expansive shoulders squared and his head held high as befitting a team leader and captain. Tony’s Iron Man suit has been removed by his bots, and he stands a few inches shorter than Steve in a black t-shirt and jeans. This time, however, he returns Clint’s gaze, and the kindness, that fucking _kindness_ in Tony’s eyes is almost more than Clint can endure.

He doesn’t need it. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t _deserve_ it.

“Steve,” Tony says, turning his head towards Steve but not looking him in the eye.

Steve disregards Tony’s quiet appeal. Steve glowers down at Clint through the cowl, all steel now, velvet mercy nowhere to be found.

“Hawkeye, you will submit to a full medical examination, be it here in the Tower’s medical bay or on board the Helicarrier. You haven’t had one for _months_ now despite your claims that you have. SHIELD doctors have confirmed this with us. On top of your insubordination, what happened out there today is _unacceptable_. You pulled a weapon on your teammate with the clear intent to cause him harm or even _kill_ him!”

“Steve -”

“If you do not submit to a medical examination, I will have no choice but to suspend you from all future Avengers missions until you comply,” Steve says, disregarding Tony’s second appeal, his lips thinning into a line of anger and, if Clint had the eyes then to see, of deep-seated worry. “You nearly fell to your death after _stepping off the ledge of the rooftop_. There’s _footage_ of this, Clint. You couldn’t _recognize_ us. Your current condition is a _danger_ to yourself and to the team _and_ to anyone else involved in a mission! _You could cost more lives_!”

Thor has caught up to them by now, and he stands about ten feet away from them to Tony’s right and Clint’s left. He stares at Steve, at Steve’s face going slack and Steve’s blue eyes widening as he realizes what he’s just exclaimed. Tony says nothing at all, staring down at the floor with narrowed eyes, lips sucked in.

Clint also stares at Steve, his face and eyes completely empty. He doesn’t protest what Steve’s stated. He doesn’t see the point of that. What Steve’s said is _true_. Why would he protest the _truth_?

“Clint, I -”

There’s only one thing for him say in return. Something he should have said, should have done the moment the Battle of New York was over. (The moment Coulson died and Clint failed him.)

“I quit,” he says, more calmly and clearly than he’s said anything else, looking Steve in the eye.

Now Thor and Tony also stare at him with wide eyes, their own faces slack with shock. He thinks he should be so _accustomed_ to that look aimed at him by now, to the discouragement, the _regrets_ he seems to engender in everyone whose lives he crashes into, who never asked for him to be there.

He thinks Coulson would be so ashamed of him now. So _disappointed_ in him for not being the best after all, for not living up to the standards set for him and showing the world the old circus white trash he really is.

But then, that’s nothing new either. That’s expected. That’s about the only sane thing in his life he can count on, over and over.

“Clint, c’mon, no -” he hears Tony call out as he swivels away and darts for the nearest stairwell, for refuge. For one second, he sees from the corners of his eyes Natasha and Bruce still standing at the open doors of the elevators, having been witnesses to Steve castigating him too. Natasha follows him with her eyes but he doesn’t look back at her as he slams through the stairwell door and races down the stairs.

He doesn’t see Thor, Tony and Steve huddle together in a quiet, vehement discussion.

“He is not of his right mind, Steven,” Thor says, scowling, rigid with dismay. “You _cannot_ allow him to quit like this, not until he is recovered once more and able to make that decision soundly.”

“Thor’s right, Steve. He’s right,” Tony says rapidly, one palm pressed to his forehead, shutting his eyes and then opening them again to look at Steve. “Clint has no idea what the hell he’s saying, what he’s _thinking_ , even. Yeah, he disobeyed orders, but he saved my ass back there. I’m pretty damn sure he saved Natasha several times too. We _would_ have been creamed if he hadn’t been there.”

Steve sighs heavily. He pushes back his cowl, then rests a hand each on Thor’s and Tony’s shoulders, glancing down at the floor with contrite eyes. Looking exactly like the young man he is, the young man who’s lost so much already himself.

“Steve, _Steve_ , he’s going to feel _trapped_ , and he’s going to _fight back_ if we cage him in and he’ll never _trust_ us again -”

“I know. I know,” Steve finally says, giving Tony’s shoulder a squeeze. “But this has to end now, Tony. Not just for his sake. He needs to wake up and _see_ what’s happening to him, before he hurts himself even more. Before he hurts other people, too, intentionally or not.”

“What if he does not _wish_ to wake up?” Thor asks softly, looking at them both with old, somber eyes. “What if we are already too late?”

Tony rubs his face with both hands, sighing loudly. Steve glances towards the elevator down the hallway, at its doors shutting on Natasha and Bruce in it. Natasha is staring at them, and her eyes are searing.

“JARVIS,” Tony says, massaging his shut eyes with the fingers of his right hand. “Where’s Clint now?”

“He is in his apartment, Sir. He has engaged all locks and demanded total privacy until further notice.”

The trio of men look at each other silently. They know that locked doors won’t stop Natasha from entering Clint’s apartment, if she chooses to do so.

She will, once she’s settled Bruce in his own apartment, but for now, for now, Clint is alone in his bedroom, sliding down the locked door to wilt on the floor as if his legs have been cut off at the knees. His broken bow tumbles from his hands, his lap in several pieces onto carpeted floor. His whole body is a mass of pain, especially his chest and belly where Thor had slammed into him to catch him midair, and he knows he’ll be bruising spectacularly in a matter of days.

He probably won’t have that much time, if he goes through with the plan concocting in his head.

He stares at the open PASIV on his unmade bed. At the semi-coiled IV line attached to the vials of Somnacin in the PASIV’s vial cradle.

He’d meant it when he told Steve he’s quit the Avengers, he did. It’s just … he doesn’t really want to leave, either. He doesn’t want to leave the first place in his entire life that he - that he’d _begun_ to believe could have been a place called home. But what else could he have expected?

He doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t have a home. He never did, and he’s a fool for believing even for a second that he could have had one here, that he was _meant_ to be here.

 _Clint, you are the perfect candidate for the Avengers Initiative_ , a sublime voice once said to him.

And he’d said, _really, the Avengers Initiative, bringing together a group of_ remarkable _people and seeing if they become something more_.

And the sublime voice had replied, with that charming quirk of lips, _like I said, you are the perfect candidate_.

For uncounted heartbeats, Clint breathes through his nose through a terrible ache in his chest, his lips sucked in between his teeth. He slides down the door farther, a twisted mound of paralyzed limbs. That wacky, white-haired dude was right. Only insane people think doing the same shit over and over will result in something different, something _better_.

But he … he can’t stop the dreaming. Can’t stop seeing Phil again, seeing him just one more time. He can’t stop, he can’t stop, _he can_ _’t stop_. He vowed he would give Coulson, give _Phil_ back the time he’d stolen from him. He vowed he’d do it no matter the cost to himself.

If there is one vow he resolves to keep to his death now, it is this one.

He’s still slumped against the door, weighing and analyzing his limited, immediate options, when he hears the footsteps on the other side of it. He knows it’s Natasha. Knows Natasha had purposely made her footsteps heard so he knows that she’s there.

“Clint. Open the door.”

Her voice is muffled by the door. He makes no move to obey, to react at all. He stares at the PASIV on the bed with hazy, stinging eyes. He doesn’t bother to blink to clear them.

“I can hear you.”

Clint knows she’s giving him the chance to let her in, that she can simply pick the lock and fight her way in if she wishes to do so.

“Open the door,” Natasha says, gentler, kinder. “Please.”

He’s never heard her voice sound that way before. He thinks, there’s so much about her that he still doesn’t know, so much left to learn about her, from her, if he only lets her in. He thinks that this is probably the last time he’ll hear her voice, the last chance he has to tell her something, _anything_.

He says nothing. He doesn’t move. He hears what sounds like a sob, but he doesn’t know who made it. Natasha doesn’t cry, does she? No, she never does. She’s too steadfast for that.

He feels the impact of her hand slapping the door hard.

He hears her forehead tap its polished, wooden surface, and stay there. If he listens keenly enough, he can hear her breathing. Hear her breath hitch, just once.

“You’re not the only one who’s lost him,” she whispers through the door, through the fog cloaking him.

And once more, there is a terrible pain in his chest, far worse than before. It persists as he listens to her hand slide down and away from the door, as she walks away from his bedroom door and out of his apartment. He feels like the ice has finally reached him, like perhaps the ice has always been there in him, waiting for someone like Loki to dredge it out of him and make him useful for once. He feels like he should finally stop being insane, stop doing the same thing over and over. Make that ultimate choice, _finally_ , and accept the consequences.

He can live with that. He can live with knowing Coulson had been wrong, just a little while longer. It isn’t him who’s the perfect candidate for the Avengers Initiative. It’s Natasha all along, Natasha who’s found her place, her _home_ here with them. A place where she can lower her hair and bare her face and smile just for the sake of smiling.

Natasha belongs here with them. He doesn’t.

No, he thinks to himself as he stares on at the PASIV, his choice made. He doesn’t belong here, he never did. But he knows where he does. He knows where he has to go.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yeah, the next update will be the conclusion of Part I. Guess who's finally showing up in Part II? *grin*


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay. If you guys thought previous chapters were chock-full of feels (Pheels?) and ugly cry, then this one ... will probably eviscerate ya. _You have been warned._
> 
> Suggested soundtrack: [The Dark Knight OST - Chance](https://youtu.be/M7QPPKn2YeE?t=51) (starting from 0:50 onwards)

For two days, Clint confines himself to his apartment. He keeps all the locks engaged, as conspicuous a hint for the others to keep their distance as it gets, short of him putting up signs that proclaim, “STAY THE FUCK AWAY,” with flashing lights and alarm bells ringing.

For two days, he forces himself to eat what he can, what will stay down in his belly. He packs up the PASIV and Somnacin vials. He sleeps while he can. He waits.

No one comes to his door. No one calls him via his StarkPad or JARVIS (which is unlikely, given that he’d gone on a spree of destruction of every camera, microphone and speaker he could find the night he locked himself in). Natasha doesn’t attempt another break in again. It’s, with a certain twist of irony, the closest he’s come yet to being at peace. Who knew all it takes for that to happen is to fall off the rooftop of a fifty-story building?

But he isn’t dead yet. He hasn’t landed yet.

Phil is still waiting for him to wake up, again.

“Clint? Are you there?”

It’s an hour after noon. He’s sitting on one of the couches in his living area, a semi-circular, beige one nestled into an alcove in front of a huge, flat screen television. He’s never switched on the television. He’s sat on this couch less than five times since moving in here. It’s a rather comfortable couch, he must admit, a temporary relief for his achy, contused body. The PASIV is shut and upright against the couch, next to his right shin. Its battery has been recharged to its fullest, guaranteed to last almost eight days. Its vial cradle and storage are full with Somnacin vials. He has enough of the drug to last him for weeks.

He won’t need anywhere near that much time, not for what he intends to do.

“Clint? I know you’re there.”

He’s dressed in a long-sleeved, white t-shirt, jeans, a black leather jacket and brown leather lace-up boots. He has a unique, silver key and his wallet in one of his jacket’s inner pockets. The wallet’s got enough money in it to buy a first class air ticket to the other side of the world if he wishes to, but he isn’t going to do that. He may have to refuel the car stashed away in one of his safe houses in the city once he gets to it by foot, if the stockpile of gas there is depleted or isn’t enough for the four-hour drive ahead. (It’s not, he’s sure of it since he and _only_ he knows about that safe house.)

“Clint. _Clint_ , I know you’re … angry. I know you don’t want to see or _talk_ to any of us, but … we gotta talk. We do. Soon.”

In his jacket’s other inner pocket is his ace up his sleeve. He’s shoved it out of his mind all this time, since the Battle of New York, since Fury told him about Coulson’s death and he’d gone back to his quarters on the Helicarrier although Natasha tried to stop him. He’d found it concealed inside one of his Hawkeye outfit’s inner pockets while stripping off said outfit, still in deep shock. He’d stared at it for ages, at its ethereal glow, at how _luminous_ it was despite being so small. Its blue light was entrancing. It made him think of the infiniteness of space, of its numberless stars and planets and nebulae. It made him think of how insignificant he was, compared to all of that, how _transient_ he was.

And then he’d slid it onto his finger, pressed the tiny, transparent button on its outer curve, and realized precisely what he must have stolen from R&D while under Loki’s control.

“I don’t know if you’re watching the news - and I’m still not hearing a thing from you, Legolas - but we’re all in D.C. right now. You’re probably happy as clam chowder to miss this senate hearing, aren’t you? Of course SHIELD is here too and, oh! We saw your old pal, Fury! Still a terrifying cyclops who can kill you with a glare, in case you were wondering.”

He has no idea why the other Avengers would be at a senate hearing in Washington, D.C., but really, he doesn’t give a fuck. They’re not here? They’re an hour away by flight?

He needs only minutes. He needs only to get past the front doors of the Tower, and then he’s free. It makes him almost want to believe in a god again, this stroke of luck making his escape all the more easier. Tony and the others will never see it coming.

“You know, Tony,” he finally says, very quietly, staring ahead at his distorted reflection on the screen of the switched off television. “I coulda _sworn_ I took out all the cameras, mikes and speakers.”

He massages his right arm with his left hand, bearing down with the pads of his fingers on the bruises there. On the injection marks that have proliferated down his forearm. His left forearm is throbbing too, bruised from Thor’s grip on it (but it’s not Thor’s fault, he knows that, it’s not).

It takes Tony a while to reply.

"After what happened that day? You can’t blame me for the …” Tony sighs. The heavy sound causes the speakers - the new ones Tony’s installed behind his back - in the ceiling to crackle for a second. “For the necessary _maintenance of contact_."

“Is that what we call it these days?”

“Clint. Clint, listen to me. The _only_ reason I had the speakers and microphones - note that, _speakers and mikes_ \- replaced is so you and JARVIS can still communicate if - if something happens. You are not a prisoner of the Tower, you hear me? _You are not a prisoner_.”

Abruptly, absurdly, Clint has the image of Coulson on horseback and in resplendent, Italian plate armor sans bascinet, his determined, handsome face framed by a mail coif. Coulson, a knight in shining armor, riding at full speed to the Tower to rescue him, to find the pieces of him left from the fall and put him back together again.

For a microsecond, Clint’s lips twitch, although his eyes are vacant.

Heh. Isn’t that a hilarious fantasy, now, that Coulson is still alive and somewhere out there, finding a way back to him? Isn’t it just fucking pathetic, too?

“Well. That’s nice to know,” he says, very, very quietly. “So I guess if I were to … take a walk in Central Park for a while, you’ll be _okay_ with that. Right? ‘Cause I gotta say, I’m kinda hankering for a giant cheeseburger from that food truck at the 5th Avenue entrance.”

That’s bullshit, of course. Everything still tastes like ash and dust to him. And sometimes, blood.

Tony answers more quickly this time. Oh, but the hesitation’s still there. Clint doesn’t miss it. He’s goddamn Hawkeye, after all.

“Yes. Yes, I _would_ be okay with that. You’ve been cooped up for too long. And I’m not just talking about the past few days.”

Clint glances up at the white ceiling. If Tony’s _maintenance of contact_ includes new cameras anyway, all Tony is going to see of him is a hollow slate. Tony won’t see the microscopic spark of anticipation that winks into existence in him.

Play it cool, now, Barton. Show Tony just the right amount of desperation. Make the guy think he’s got the upper-hand in this.

“Look. I know you’ve got JARVIS hooked into the city.”

Tony says nothing but he knows Tony’s listening.

“Have him watch me through CCTV, or any camera he can access. I know he’s capable of that. He could probably follow me around the _world_ if you told him to, right?”

Tony says nothing to that either, but yeah, Tony is definitely listening. JARVIS isn’t saying anything either.

“And I’ll bet you and Steve have already told JARVIS to do that. Haven’t you? Watch me the instant I step out of this apartment.”

“Clint,” Tony says, now as quietly, carefully. “If we did do that, you gotta know that it’s because we actually give a damn about you. You _know_ that, right?” Tony pauses for a long moment. “I don’t know if you’ll remember this time, but … we’re here. We’re here for you. We are. I know you don’t believe it, maybe you can’t even _hear_ it no matter how many times we’ve said it, but we are. You’re _safe_ with us.”

Clint says nothing to that. He’s staring at his reflection on the television screen once more, his face and mind blank.

“You think you’re alone, but that’s … you’re not. You’re not the only one who knows what it’s like to have your whole world just … _disappear_. To have to become someone else over night, someone you don’t _want_ to be and just - just _snap_ under the weight. I know. I _know_ what it’s like to be an addi-” Tony pauses again, for tremulous seconds. Inhales audibly. “You are not alone. You can always, _always_ come to us. To _me_. You _remember_ that.”

Clint says nothing, still. He blinks as Tony’s words filter in, as he hears another voice speak in the background of the call.

"Tony, they're asking for us.”

It sounds like Bruce, but Tony doesn’t reply and instead says to him, “We'll talk when we get back, okay, Clint? Mano a mano. Over a nice, giant cheeseburger and fries and shakes, whatever you want. I know this _great_ steak house in Brooklyn that serves some damn good burger. Steve and I eat there all the time. And yeah, we'll talk. We’ll talk, okay?” Tony seems to be waiting for a response. When Tony doesn’t receive it, he murmurs to himself, “Yeah. Okay."

The call ends with the cessation of any sound from the speakers in the ceiling. Clint blinks again, his brows creasing in a frown of puzzlement. Remember … _this time_? What did Tony mean by _that_? Has Tony said all that to him _before_?

If Tony has, if _anyone_ else has, why doesn’t he remember it?

What else does he not remember?

Clint glances around the room, his lower lip sucked in, his brows still creased. He wonders how many new speakers and mikes (and cameras, there’s always the possibility Tony lied to him and he knows how smoothly Tony can lie when it suits Tony’s purposes) are monitoring him now. He wonders just how many times Tony’s said all that to him, if Tony had meant any of it.

He wonders if his former quarters on the Helicarrier had been bugged with mikes and cameras too, despite Coulson claiming otherwise so many years ago.

 _Consider the fact that by the time anyone is allowed on the Helicarrier_ , Coulson had said in his office, sitting at his desk and shearing through paperwork like the competent, top-level SHIELD agent he was, _they_ _’ve been personally vetted by the Director and Deputy Director_.

 _That still doesn_ _’t answer my question, you know, sir_ , he’d replied, sprawled on Coulson’s dark purple couch.

 _No, your quarters aren_ _’t monitored. Your neighbors complain about you making so much noise that we don’t need to_ , Coulson had said back, deadpan, causing him to snicker and sprawl even more indolently.

Then Coulson had put his serious face on and told him about the agents who _would_ get monitored if their handlers reported any irregular behavior. Self-destructive behavior, in particular.

_It's cut down self-harm and suicide rates, Clint, as much as I understand why you might find it … distasteful. It’s saved lives. And that makes it worth the cost._

And here, now, he sees in his mind Tony and Steve and the others in a room, reluctantly watching video footage of him via a transparent projected screen. Instead of smiling with glee, they’re pensive and grim. They're watching someone they give a damn about, a _friend_ , plummeting to what would have been a gruesome death. They’re watching someone they want to keep _safe_.

But how can he be truly safe again, with Coulson dead?

How does he go on, with his world already gone?

Tony won’t understand that. Tony still has so much to live for, to be safe for in spite of whatever hell he’s been through: For Pepper Potts, current CEO of Stark Industries and one of his most trusted, beloved friends. For his company, the legacy it’s already established, the historic changes to the world of technology it’ll continue to generate. For the billions upon fucking _billions_ of dollars he possesses in cash and assets that’ll ensure a lifetime of luxury and indulgence. For the Avengers, a group of remarkable, _strong_ people like him who’ll become something more.

And Clint … Clint doesn’t belong with them. He never did, despite what Coulson believed. Even Coulson knew very well how much _weaker_ he is compared to the others. Hell, even the _R &D techs _ know, if what that long-haired, bespectacled head tech - what was his name, Samson? Samburg? _Sandburg_? - said to him was reliable in any way, when he requested for his long-sleeved jacket.

 _I_ _’m sorry about Agent Coulson_ , Sandburg had said to him after pulling up Coulson’s designs for the jacket on a monitor screen for his perusal and approval. _He was a good guy. Kind guy. We liked him a lot. You and Coulson were probably pretty close, huh? He always came to us with new costume designs for the Avengers, but he had the most designs for you. I think he was concerned about your exposed arms and insisted on at least a long-sleeved jacket. Something flexible and yet armored and resistant to heat, corrosives, you name it. It_ _’s a good design. He knew his stuff._ And then Sandburg had gone silent for a moment, then said with admiration, _man, he faced that alien invader all by himself. He saved so many of us. He really was something, wasn_ _’t he_?

Yeah, Coulson was. Coulson really was.

Clint grasps the handles of the PASIV and stands up. It’s all he’s going to take with him out of the city. It’s plain-looking enough that no one will see it as anything other than a silver suitcase a typical businessman would carry on a trip. All he’s missing is a suit and tie to complete the look, hair styled and clean-shaven as he is. Then again, he doesn’t do suits. Wearing one would be like firing a missile to D.C. that screams at the team, _get the fuck back to New York and stop Barton NOW_!

No one and nothing stops him as he leaves his apartment via the elevator. He feels nothing at all about leaving behind what few worldly possessions he has, even his bows, even the very first one he’d owned while he was in the circus and had bought with his own money. He feels nothing as he ambles out the elevator at a casual pace into the main lobby of the Tower, his eyes fixated on the automatic, sliding glass doors of the main entrance. He’s passing the long, arched reception desk when he sees the camera above it, camouflaged as it is, rotate within its tinted glass dome in his direction. He presses the forefinger and third finger of his left hand together and taps them against his temple in a salute at the camera, his lips quirking up on one end.

 _Hi Tony, bye Tony_ , he thinks to himself, imagining Tony sneaking looks at his StarkPad during the senate meeting, watching a real-time video feed of him walking out of the Tower and onto the bustling sidewalk. He doesn’t look back at the Tower as he walks on and on, farther and farther, mingling with the crowd, his right hand tightening on the PASIV’s handles. His left hand slides into the right inner pocket of his jacket, his fingers curling around the glowing, blue prototype ring there.

Tony’s about to see a real nice magic trick now.

He slips the ring onto the fourth finger of his left hand, because of course the universe hates him and made sure it's the only finger the ring fits on. It pulses with warmth, as if it has its own heartbeat. He gazes down at it after he removes his hand from his jacket pocket, and it’s still as hypnotizing to him as the first time he laid eyes upon it, a little miracle of his own.

He walks on, acutely aware of cameras following him, until he reaches an empty length of sidewalk in front of an apartment building.

He presses the tiny transparent button on the ring’s outer curve.

He hears an almost whimsical buzzing noise, sees a flash of brilliant blue wash over him like the wave of an ocean. Then, his vision returns to normal. The buzzing noise fades away.

Now, he’s become completely invisible. No cameras can see him, not even the most advanced, hi-def ones Tony’s got, not even satellites and their scanners in space. No mikes will pick up a single sound from him. No heat scanners will detect his body heat, no matter how high it goes. On top of that, he can mask himself with a different face and body simply by imagining it, if he doesn’t want to be invisible and yet disguise himself. No one, _nothing_ can see or hear him unless he wills it. (And Eames would probably want this damn thing for himself, if he ever learns of it, a means of forging in reality and not just in dreams.)

Yeah. Coulson really was something, to have designed a cloaking device as incredible as this.

With the pressure of upholding a pretense gone, Clint drops into what he (and Natasha) considers mission mode: He shuts down all drifting thoughts, focusing solely on those pertinent to the mission at hand. He analyzes and numerates his tasks, ticking them off as he achieves them: Get to the safe house. Make sure it hasn’t been broken into and is still secure. Check and secure the car in the garage. Make sure the car’s still functional and has a full tank of gas. Get the fuck out of New York City and head to Sugar Hill State Forest, go, go, _go_!

In a black Ford Fusion, he wears the face of a stranger as he weaves his way through Manhattan traffic to the George Washington Bridge and out into New Jersey. From there, he gets onto the I-80 W that takes him up a winding route that goes in and out of Pennsylvania and New York and multiple highways that seem to stretch on and on into a gray eternity. Then from there, he has to reach Cooper Plains and pass the Goundry Hill State Forest and Coon Hollow State Forest to get to where he has to be. To where Phil will be.

There are spans of time that he only realizes he’s missing when he glances at the digital clock on the dashboard screen to the right of the steering wheel. It leaps forward in time faster than he expects every time he looks at it. The scenery before his eyes seem to leap the same way, flitting from one to another like the pages of a photo album being flipped at random moments. One minute he’s seeing an endless, spiraling path in front of him, going on and on and on no matter how long he pushes the car ahead. The next minute he’s seeing the path split into multiple ones, uncertain of how he got there, astounded that he hasn’t crashed into another car already (and finished the job right there, right then). Then the next, he’s seeing miles after miles of opulent forests on both sides of the road, mute and sleeping sentinels standing tall and proud in the dying sunlight.

Time winks in and out, robbed from him over and over.

He drives on, and on. He doesn’t look back. He feels nothing, nothing at all.

The sun is setting when he finds himself parked on a winding driveway in front of a secluded, fenced, octagonal-shaped house on the side of a hill overlooking other verdant, rolling hills. Its lower floor is a two-door garage. The upper floor has numerous ceiling-to-floor windows to let its inhabitants gaze out into the forests beyond, and a wooden, wrap-around front porch with two wooden recliners. There’s a sun room to the left of the house. To the right is a cozy, wooden garden pavilion hemmed in by leafy bushes and trees. Two stone staircases wind up and frame the sides of the house.

Inside, Clint knows there are two bedrooms, two bathrooms, an open plan and fully equipped kitchen and a living room with black futon couches and glass, sliding doors that open onto the wrap-around deck. He knows that only one of the bedrooms, the master bedroom, will have a mattress in it, a king-sized one. He knows that all the glass are shatterproof and bulletproof. He knows that there’s a cache of weapons in a secret nook in the floor under the bed frame of the other bedroom. He knows that the sun room is the best spot to be in during a sunny afternoon, to sit on one of its cushioned, wicker lounge chairs and relax in the warmth. Or read a book, as Coulson was wont to do when they were here.

He’s here. He’s finally here, at Coulson’s safe house that even SHIELD and the Avengers don’t know about.

He sits in the car and stares at the house for a long time. It looks exactly the same. It looks exactly like how they’d left it over two years ago, tidy and impeccable, defended by a system that would have Tony salivating, awaiting its owner to return to its sanctuary.

There’s a beeping noise coming from the passenger seat. He glances down and to his surprise, there’s a disposable phone on top of the PASIV on the seat. The glove compartment is open. He doesn’t remember opening the compartment. He doesn’t remember there being a phone in there, much less switching it on. He picks it up and sees that its battery is almost dead. It has five missed calls from the same number, which mystifies him. He doesn’t remember calling anyone. He doesn’t remember telling anyone about this number, so he _must_ have called someone along the way. The phone number is foreign, too, with multiple 1s and 4s and 0s in front.

The phone beeps again, for the last time. Its battery dies, and Clint is left staring at a black screen, at his dim reflection that shows him his own face again. He doesn’t remember shutting off the cloaking device. He doesn’t remember how he got the phone. Doesn’t know who he called, who called back. Doesn’t know if there’s a tracking device in it, if it’s secure. He better smash it up, to be safe.

Coulson would be so mad at him if anyone else locates this house.

He gets out of the car with the PASIV in one hand and the phone in the other. He lets the phone fall to the grassy ground and stomps on it methodically until it’s pulverized plastic and metal. He then trudges to the front of the car and glances at the grill and front lights. They’re undamaged. There’s no blood on them. He didn’t crash into any cars or anyone.

Well, thank fuck for that, at least.

He trudges to one of the stone staircases and up to the upper floor where the front door is. Unlike regular houses, or even remote vacation houses like this one, there’s a state-of-the-art, biometric-included security lock attached to the front door. Coulson had said that the initial tech had been developed by SHIELD’s R&D before he’d taken it out of their hands and worked on it some more himself and removed any possible trackers. It’s keyed specifically to Coulson’s hand print. And his.

 _Put your hand there_ , Coulson had said to him the evening they arrived, gesturing at the rectangular, plastic panel of the lock. _I_ _’ll add your print to the permissions_.

He’d asked with a smirk, uncaring of it making his facial bruises ache, _sir, is a hand print all it takes to get inside the house_?

And of course, Coulson had given him an unimpressed look (still such an attractive look) and taken out a rather unique-looking, silver key from the breast pocket of his blazer.

 _No, the print is the first step._ This _is the second one. The one that counts_.

The key was cut from a metal half-cylinder, with notches made at different angles. After pressing his uninjured hand on the panel as Coulson instructed, Coulson had keyed in some code, which then caused the lock to beep and then a small slat near the bottom to slide to the side to display an innocuous-looking, circular lock. Coulson had slid the key in and turned in, waited for another beep and a green light to appear at the top of the lock, and then said with quirked lips, _welcome to my home away from home_.

If his print is still in the lock’s memory, no problem. If it isn’t -

He puts down the PASIV on the floor beside him. Presses his right hand to the plastic panel of the lock. It lights up when he does, and beeps. When the small slat near the bottom slides open, he removes the key from his jacket’s inner pocket and slots it into the lock. It fits without a hitch, rotating the detainer discs inside in it and aligning the grooves to disengage the lock.

The front door swings open into the dim living room with another beep from the security lock. As he saunters in with the PASIV and shuts the door behind him, listening to it automatically lock, he wonders why Coulson had given him a key to the house. Why Coulson even _had_ a second key to give in the first place. Did Coulson appoint him as the caretaker of the house with that action? To make sure the house wouldn’t be abandoned and go into disrepair in the event Coulson -

He cuts the thought off as he flips the light switch to the right of the door. He gazes at the clean, cherry wood flooring of the living room under the warm lighting, at the plush futon couches and their multi-colored, striped pillows in contrast to the antiquated, wooden coffee table and side tables. He gazes out the living room windows, remembering when he’d sat on one of those couches with his left arm in a cast and bandages, when he’d stared over its backrest at the orange, purple and gold glazing the sky as the sun settled for another day. Coulson had sat with him, sipping a hot mug of coffee, riffling through more paperwork while wearing black, thick-framed spectacles.

It’d been such a tranquil evening. He’d thought as he watched the sun go down, as he watched Coulson whenever he felt he could get away with it, _I could be here forever, just like this, with this man beside me_.

He’d kept it to himself. Until it was too late.

He shuffles across the cherry wood floor to the open plan kitchen. He touches its polished, brown counters where he and Coulson had set their bowls and plates to have their meals side by side so they could look out the windows at the forest. Touches the stainless steel stove where Coulson had cooked all their meals due to his injured arm and hand from their last mission then, a snafu in Namibia that almost rivaled that of Budapest. He opens the stainless steel fridge perpendicular to the stove and sees that it’s empty. It’d been stocked with fresh meat, fruits and vegetables when he and Coulson were here. They couldn’t order takeout, but then, he’d liked that nobody would be knocking on the door. He’d liked that it was just him and Coulson, and no one else.

He shuffles across more cherry wood floor to the master bedroom. He remembers shuffling down this very path as they retired for the night, with Coulson’s arm around his waist, so cautious of his bound, fractured ribs, of the sea of bruises traversing his torso and even his thighs. He’d leaned more than he had to against Coulson, and Coulson hadn’t complained, not one word. Hadn’t reared back or stiffened at his personal space being breached.

Coulson had gone an unexpected (and adorable) shade of red when they reached the second bedroom and they saw that the bed frame had no mattress. In fairness, neither of them had bothered to check out the second bedroom yet. They’d left their bags in the master bedroom first to eat after the long drive from New York City, and then spent the evening lounging and chatting in the living room while the television was on in the background.

 _The bed can fit both of us, sir_ , his big mouth had blabbed. _We can just sleep together._

He knew he’d gone an even darker shade of red from the heat emanating from his own face. Coulson had earned lots of brownie points then for not pointing it out. Coulson had earned about a zillion more when he merely said, _okay_ , and guided them back to the master bedroom.

Clint had to pinch himself on one of his most painful bruises on his right thigh, just to be sure he wasn’t dreaming as Coulson got into the bed next to him and drew the blankets over them both, as Coulson propped himself up with two pillows against the headboard and opened a book to read under the light from the bedside table lamp. Coulson had stripped down to a white, threadbare t-shirt and black pajama pants, and he had those spectacles on again, those specs that made him look like an erudite professor.

Again, his big mouth blabbed, _are you gonna read me a bedtime story, sir_?

Coulson had gazed at him with crinkled eyes. It made him grin in return as he squirmed into a more comfortable position on his right side. Coulson had gazed at him, and then gazed back at his book. And then, Coulson began to read aloud to him in that sublime voice that flowed into him like the most luscious honey, sweet and thick, and he’d laid there silently, attentively, thinking, _I could listen to him speak forever, speak anything and everything_.

And as the sun rose, as sunshine streamed in through the bedroom windows and awakened him from a hale rest, he’d gazed at a slumbering Coulson beside him, at Coulson’s handsome, perfect face. He’d thought, _I could lay here forever with this man, just like this, just like this_.

He’d kept the words to himself. Kept his hands to himself, when he’d yearned to trace the length of Coulson’s patrician nose, to trace Coulson’s soft lips with his fingertips.

Told himself he had no right to that, that Coulson didn’t love him the way he loved Coulson. That the way Coulson _did_ love him was enough.

Enough.

The door of the master bedroom swings open noiselessly. He switches on the ceiling lights, and has to breathe through a jagged rock in his throat as he gazes at the very bed he’d slept in with Coulson, at its purple sheets and gold pillows against a dark gray, padded headboard, at its wooden bedside tables upon which Coulson would place their morning mugs of steaming coffee. He gazes as long at the drawn curtains, at their swirls of dark purple and gold. They’ll shimmer in the coming morning, in the glorious sunlight.

He won’t be here to see it.

He places the PASIV on the bed and opens it up. He removes his boots, his jacket and folds it up, placing it on the nearest bedside table. He climbs onto the bed and pulls out the IV line of the PASIV. The Somnacin vials are already primed for infusion, all of them. He’s already tampered with the PASIV’s timer, disabling it so the Somnacin will continually be infused into his vein until … until it doesn’t have to be, anymore.

He knows the other Avengers won’t find him, not here. He knows how enraged Natasha is going to be, how much she’ll hate the world again, how she’ll have to be reminded all over again that it’s a fucking unfair place where happy endings are only for those who can afford to pay for them. He knows how disappointed the others will be too, especially Tony, if Tony really had meant everything he said. He knows how furious Arthur will be, how _overwhelmed_ Eames will be, what with that big fucking heart under all that suaveness and crooked smiles.

And if Coulson was still alive … if Coulson _was_ -

His vision turns blurry, hot. He blinks as he rolls up his right sleeve and inserts the needle into a vein in his right arm, at the droplets of water appearing out of nowhere onto his skin and his jeans. He stares in bemusement at them, his face expressionless. He doesn’t know where the droplets are coming from. He wipes his face with his left palm and finds it wet. He doesn’t know why.

He lies down on his back on sleek, purple bed sheets. He rests his head on a golden pillow and stares up at the pristine, white ceiling, at the round ceiling lamp that burns a shadowy afterimage on his retina. He touches the PASIV’s round activation button with the fingers of his right hand.

On their own accord, his lips move in a soundless whisper of two words. He doesn’t know what they are. He only hopes that the people who need to hear them will, somehow.

He shuts his eyes. Presses down the activation button.

For an eon and a day, he sees and hears nothing. He feels nothing but sleek bed sheets against his bare skin, feels the cool air of an air-conditioner drifting over his face.

Then, he hears a door opening, then shutting quietly. He hears slow, steady footsteps, such familiar ones, entering the room. He smells the aroma of fresh coffee, still tongue-burning hot.

He opens his eyes, and sees that the ceiling lamp is switched off. He sees that the curtains are drawn back, that searing sunshine is streaming through the windows.

He sees Phil, attired in a threadbare, white t-shirt and black pajamas pants, sauntering up to the bed with two mugs of coffee in hand. Phil is wearing those thick-framed, black spectacles. Phil’s lips are quirked in that oh-so-very-charming way, at him.

“Hey,” Phil murmurs as he sits down on the side of the bed next to him. “Welcome home.”

Clint’s vision turns blurry, hot once more. That jagged rock is back in his throat, bigger than ever, and he can’t speak, even as Phil cups the side of his face with one hand and strokes his cheek with a thumb.

“Hey. What’s wrong? What’s the matter?” Phil says so softly, rubbing the frail skin under his eyes several times.

He blinks until his vision is clear again, until he can see every contour, every channel, every boundary of Phil’s handsome face again.

“I just …” He covers his wet face with both hands and then drags his hands down with a loud sigh, his eyes shut. “It’s fucking stupid. It was just … it was just a bad dream. That’s all.”

He opens his eyes after Phil puts their mugs of coffee on the bedside table and leans across his bare chest, propping himself up on one elbow on the bed. Phil is even more exquisite up close. His eyelids flutter as Phil taps tenderly at his eyelashes, at the tip of his nose.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He gazes up at Phil, his eyes constantly roaming all over Phil’s face.

“I …” He coughs to clear his throat, then rasps, “I dreamed that a war broke out in NYC. I dreamed that this - this _asshole_ Norse god bastard invaded the city with some alien race, and that we, the Avengers, had to fight them to stop them from taking over the world.”

“Did we win?”

Phil is indulging him, though not in any patronizing way, and he presses his hand on top of Phil’s that’s resting upon his chest, his beating heart.

“We saved the world, yeah, but …” Phil waits patiently for him to whisper, after swallowing visibly, after blinking some more, “You died. I dreamed that Norse god evil _bastard_ stabbed you in the back and … _killed_ you. And I couldn’t save you.”

"Mm, that _does_ sound like a rather terrible dream.” Phil shifts closer to him, stroking his chest, eyes crinkled and affectionate. “But that’s all it was. Wasn’t it?”

Still gazing up at Phil, Clint lifts a hand to Phil’s face and traces the crow’s feet, the laugh lines around Phil’s beautiful blue eyes. He taps at Phil’s thick eyelashes under those (adorable) dorky spectacles as Phil shuts his eyes. He traces the length of Phil’s patrician nose, traces Phil’s soft lips as they quirk up yet again in that not-smile that’s his, his alone.

For a moment, just a moment, he feels ice creeping over him. He feels it shrouding him from head to toe, snaking into his eyes, his ears, his nose, his mouth, turning everything in him into a forgotten wasteland of snow. He feels as if he’s plunging into a deep sleep, a sleep from which he’ll never awaken.

But also, he feels the warmth of the sunshine streaming in through the windows of his and Phil’s bedroom. He feels the warmth of Phil’s gaze upon him, melting away all that ice and snow to invite eternal spring.

There is no snow, no ice.

There is no suffering, no death, no gods here.

 _Ssshh_.

Clint chuckles at the whistling noise Phil makes with his lips against his fingers.

"Yeah,” he says, smiling with crinkled eyes of his own at Phil, feeling only heat and love and life. “Just a bad dream. That’s all.”

“And what is it that I always tell you, sweetheart? Hmm?” Phil asks with one raised eyebrow.

Clint smiles ever wider.

“You’re here. You’ll be here when I wake up. Like you always are.”

Then Phil is leaning down and kissing him with coffee-flavored lips, with all the time in the world. He’s laughing with Phil as he drags Phil down onto the bed with him and kisses him again, and again and _again_.

Yes, everything is perfect and true and exactly as they should be, because he’s here. He’s finally here.

He’s home.


	10. Chapter 10

Two days later, Clint is dreaming of a perfect life in a perfect house that that looks just like the house he’s dying in, dreaming of a man who’s already dead and yet dying with him.  
  
Two days later, in a dark purple hooded sweater, white t-shirt, jeans and black boots, a scarred, weary and very much living Agent Phil Coulson of SHIELD strides through the looming front doors of the Avengers Tower.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yeah, we are officially going into Part II of the story.
> 
> And shout it with me now, folks: COOOOOOOOUUUUULLLLLLSOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNN!
> 
>  
> 
> (AS OF APRIL 2016 - This story is being rewritten and overhauled big time. I will post the new, final version under the same title but very likely in two huge parts rather than multiple chapters. And yep, it will be angst and Clint suffering to the _extreeemeeeeee_.)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Dans Mes Rêves, Je M’enfuis / In My Dreams, I Escape Me (New Version)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6610216) by [giddytf2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/giddytf2/pseuds/giddytf2)




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